Into the Wild
by zero0hero
Summary: A lone UNSC frigate finds itself far from home and holding the keys to ending the Covenant war. If only they can survive insane aliens, a race rampant AIs, and a cutoff branch of their own species.
1. Chapter 1

-1

Chapter One- A Conflict of Interests

The battle was going badly. Staff Sergeant Michael "Ghost" Weiss

watched as a pair of F-99s streaked overhead vectored in by some navy tech

sitting safe on an orbiting prowler. The drone fighters banked in perfect

unison and their onboard cannons roared as they strafed the advancing covenant line. A hail of un-aimed plasma fire clawed at the fighters as they began to climb but they manage to escape reprisal.

Not that it mattered much, Weiss noted. The first wave was composed almost entirely of grunts. ONI xenology reports had noted the high fertility and reproduction rates of the methane breathing aliens. As near as Weiss could figure, killing the little bastards was probably doing the Covenant a favor.

He felt a hand at his shoulder. "Sergeant, shouldn't we move out?" Lance Corporal Clare Nelson gave him an anxious look. As far as Weiss could tell she was a good soldier with a promising future, assuming she survived long enough to be promoted. . She was a quick thinker, and sympathized with her fellow marines.

"Just give me twenty seconds." He said flatly. He thumbed the transmit switch on his radio. "Calamity Dog, this is Ghost, 2nd platoon forward recon has positive citing on Covenant front line. Advancing force is composed of grunts, approximate strength four hundred, light vehicle support, no triple-A. Requesting artillery fire mission pave medium at grid 4B, subgrid 1-3-2-D by 2-2-4-D, targets moving north northwest at five KPH. Over."

There was static for a moment, then, "Ghost, this is Calamity Dog, we have received your report but cannot, repeat, cannot comply. All artillery assets are currently tasked with supporting the 415th. Advise you use any practical means to slow the advance and then withdraw to firebase India."

Weiss' jaw clenched slightly. "Confirmed command, Ghost over and out."

He looked up at Clare. "Lets get back to the rest of the platoon. We'll dig in, burn through our ammo and then cut and run. Hopefully they'll think we're a larger force and hesitate."

"But won't they just charge us when we try to disengage?" Clare asked.

"That's what the land mines are for." Weiss said. They cut back through the ruined buildings of the Aldrin planetary spaceport, mostly cargo handling facilities, Lorelei was an agworld, the spaceport was as large as any found on Reach but there was only one terminal for handling passengers. The rest was dedicated to sending and receiving cargo. When a colony wide evacuation had been called the navy had commandeered a dozen modular heavy lift freighters to evacuate the colony's two hundred and fifty thousand residents. They sat on the launch pads now, half buried underground, skyscraper sized stacks of modular containers wrapped around a fusion engine. Civilians had flocked to the spaceport lest they be left behind.

If the colony had more time it might have been easier to repeat the stunt pulled at Harvest and launch the civilians into space using the planet's space elevator, but Lorelei's orbital tether was two thousand miles from the main population centers, at the heart of a continent sized farm. There was no way to organize an exodus on that scale, not with the Covenant making assault landings across the continent.

2nd platoon had dug into the ruins of the spaceport's administrative office. A squat two story concrete building that had been built back when the port had first been established. They sprinted across the no mans land separating the administrative building from a line of warehouses. As they approached Weiss studied his platoons handy work. The broad grass lawn surrounding the building had been torn up with explosive and planted with antipersonnel mines, the platoon had blasted holes in the second story walls to create a nest for the marksmen team, and a quartet of automated sentry guns had been setup covering key fields of fire.

"Sergeant." Corporal James Billinghust beckoned Weiss and Clare to cover.

"What's our status?" Weiss asked.

"We're dug in good, just like you ordered. Hogs are on the parking ramp behind the building."

Weiss took his binoculars and scanned the rubble again. Battalion-net had started tracking the formation as soon as Weiss had called it in. It wasn't the only major thrust hitting the marine line, a covenant armored column was advancing along the northern highway while elements of the 415th MAR dueled with a covenant mechanized force trying to push through to the civilian evacuation area. There were intermittent reports of jackal infiltrators throughout the spaceport and some large seismic readings were being registered from the south but dust and smoke from the fighting was making it hard for the satellites to get a fix.

"So what do we do now, Sergeant?" Corporal Billinghurst asked.

Weiss took a grenade from his pack and slipped it into the under slung launcher of his MA5B. "Near as I can tell we have about five minutes before a few hundred grunts start spreading themselves through this area. We're going to make them think we've moved up our defense perimeter. With any luck that will throw them off and give us a chance to withdraw. Are the wounded ready to move?"

Billinghurst grimaced, "Mathews and Polanski aren't too bad, we've got them strapped into passenger seats on the hogs with a couple of fresh mags. Mao has lost a lot of blood, he'll probably die if we move him, but he'll be dead for sure if we don't, he needs a corpsman."

"Right." Weiss grunted, "Corporal Nelson, your team is on point, forget fire discipline, I want suppression. Billinghurst, get the jackhammers up onto the second floor, your free to engage any vehicles or troop concentrations worth the ammo." He thumbed his mike to the all squads frequency, "Alright marines, we've got four hundred plus foot mobiles incoming right into our kill zone. We're going to hit'm hard as soon as they come into sight, make'm cautious, then pull out. Keep up the fire until your down to two mags or you hear the order to withdraw." A series of green blinking affirmatives appeared in the corner of Weiss's helmet visor.

Weiss settled into position and shouldered his rifle, looking out a rubble strewn hole in the wall. The distant crack of gunfire, the anxious rustling of marines, the doppler shriek of dronefighters and hornet jump jets were the only sounds.

There! Weiss took aim, a short, hunchbacked silhouette was hiding in the shadows of one of the warehouses, its nurvouse movements giving it away. He eyeballed the range at about two hundred meters, thumbed his rifle to single fire, took aim, and squeezed. The single shot echoed and the silhouette dropped. A moment later a hail of plasma bolts burst from the shadows. 2nd platoon answered with assault rifle and SAW fire.

The covenant soldiers began to flood from the buildings taking, advantage of their small stature to find cover on the rubble strewn tarmac. A charged plasma shot blasted a hole in administrative building's concrete facade while lighter shots ate away at 2nd platoon's cover. One unfortunate marine took a shot to the chest. The ablative plating of his combat vest might have saved him but the heat of the spent shot lit off the magazines in his ammo pouch. His body performed a gruesome dance macabre before falling over

A second marine died quick taking a plasma bolt to the head vaporizing his skull and sending his helmet flying out as shrapnel. Fire picked up as a pair of Ghost hoversleds appeared from behind a maintenance shed on the platoon's flank, the pilots tried strafing their position only to be taken out a pair of jackhammers. Another rocket shot from its tube, annihilating a pack of grunts trying to charge the platoons forward most position.

A respectable line of bodies began to build up around 2nd platoon's position, bullet riddled methane canisters popped on occasion and drew additional fire. Weiss estimated they inflicted ten percent casualties within the first two minutes. That would have been enough to freeze a marine battalion in its tracks but something had whipped the alien troops into a frenzy.

"Sergeant, fire team charlie is out." Corporal Nelson reported.

A spectre that had been laying down suppressive fire from a distance exploded as a jackhammer homed in on its white hot gun barrel. "That was our last rocket Sergeant." Corporal Billinghurst signaled.

"Platoon fall back by numbers to the hogs, we're moving out." Weiss emptied his clip into the oncoming tide of infantry, fired a rifle grenade for good measure, and bolted back towards the rear of the building. As he ran he heard alien screams as the advancing wave hit the minefield. The platoons Hogs sat on the access ramp to the building's underground parking bay. Weiss dropped into the passenger seat of the lead hog and slapped the driver on the side of the helmet. The marine stamped down on the accelerator and the hog fishtailed as it shot up the ramp. "Billinghurst, key the sentries." He shouted into his com. On his helmet visor the a quartet of lights blinked green as four sentry guns went live.

Over the wine of the hogs electric motors he heard the guns spin up. Each sentry consisted of an M41 chain gun mounted on a servo driven tripod, they were programmed to engage anything that entered their field of fire. The guns would run dry or the grunts would flank them and realize the marines had abandoned their positions. Either way it bought time for their escape.

"Calamity Dog this is Ghost, 2nd Platoon had disengaged enemy at forward point November, heading for fire base India, over."

"Ghost this is Calamity Dog, copy, your new orders are to reroute to the evacuation center and guard the evacuees. The time table has been moved up, we're getting everyone off this rock by sundown. Over."

A cold feeling gripped at his insides. "Why are we moving up the launch? Over."

"Calamity Dog copies, the seismic disturbances we've been detecting have been verified by drone flyover. Four scarabs on approach to your position with infantry escort, ETA thirty minutes, and that's just the lead elements." Weiss's mouth went dry. Scarabs were the covenants heavy hitters, even the lightest models could wade through heavy fire and packed enough weaponry to eradicate a UNSC tank battalion.

"Calamity Dog please advise, are units moving to delay the Scarabs?"

"Affirmative Ghost, THEY are on their way." The line went dead.

"They?" Ghost thought.

"Sierra-2-3, this is Calamity Dog, Scarabs are on approach, can you verify."

Silence for a moment. "Sierra-2-3 copies, approaching force confirmed, four Scarabs, staggered formation advancing on a northerly vector. Infantry support, one covenant infantry company, Grunt and Jackal formations with Elite support. Lead elements will overpass this position in ten minutes, over." Daisy grimaced inside her helmet as she watched the Covenant leviathans approaching, their armored limbs seemed to stab at the earth with each step dragging them inexhorably closer to their goal.

When the walkers had been identified, Vermillion team had been returning from a retrieval and demolition mission at an ONI NavSpecWep facility in the Planetary Capital. Their Pelican had been rerouted by ground command and linked up with elements of the 55th Engineering Battalion and 28th light infantry to delay the walkers advancing on the civilian evac point. Idealy the Spartans would have simply planted a tac-nuke or spotted for an artillery strike but neither option was on the table. The EMP from an atmospheric nuclear detonation could damage the civilian transports docked at the spaceport and the fleet was too busy getting its teeth kicked in to provide orbital support. All other artillery assets were either too light or tied up.

That left doing things the hard way. Daisy glanced over at her fellow Spartans, Isaac and Li. They stood out, all Spartans stood out from the the soldiers they served with. Seven feet tall and Clad in half a ton of olive drab Mjolnir tactical armor, they were unshakable monoliths amongst the merely human marines that they served besides, or at least, that was what ONI liked the public to think. If only it were true.

"So, Daisy, what do you think?" Isaac asked.

Daisy surveyed the ambush site, a flat plot of undeveloped land on the perimeter of the spaceport crisscrossed with half buried drainage ditches and overgrown with grass. The ditches formed a makeshift trench network that the marines and Spartans were exploiting to provide cover while the grass provided camouflage and combined with insulated camo sheets, broke up their thermal signature. "I think it reminds me of those old 20th century movies Chief Mendez used to show us as a reward when we were kids. All we need is an ice field."

"Ice would make this harder, we'd light up like torches on their thermals." Li said.

Isaac snickered and shook his head, "And once again it flies right over your head."

Li turned his head to stare at Isaac, his fellow Spartans new that beneath his opaque visor lay another expressionless mask.

The ground shook as the Scarabs drew closer. Daisy stiffened, "Heads up we've got trouble." She tagged a covenant troop formation screening the Scarabs on her HUD and sent the image to the other Spartans. "They're getting close to the marine positions."

The Spartans lay perfectly still as the advancing force passed the overgrown ditch where a marine fire team was lying in wait. The Covenant troops were confident, why wouldn't they be? I bet you think your the baddest mothers out here. Daisy thought, well, they were about to break the covenant of that misconception.

The rear Scarab crossed into the killzone, marine and Spartans sprung into action. A dozen jackhammer rockets smashed into the back legs of the rear Scarab causing it to stagger. A second flight concentrated on the already weakened joint, crippling one of the legs. The Scarab shuddered and began to turn to face its attackers. A phalanx of jackals wheeled back around and locked shields, advancing on the fire team's position.

At the same time marines positioned around the field started throwing off camo netting. The covenant infantry found themselves embroiled in an ambush. The marines of the 28th let loose with machine guns, assault rifles, and automatic grenade launchers, making quick work of grunts and forcing the Jackals and Elites into whatever cover they could find. Scarabs were nearly unstoppable juggernauts against armor and fortifications, but without an infantry screen they were as vulnerable to harassment as any tank.

A second Scarab peeled off from its cohorts and turned back to engage the marines on the ground. The Scarab's spherical head opened up and a spray of white light bathed the ditch line as it vented reactor plasma. There wasn't even time for the marines caught in the ditch to scream.

The lead walkers shrugged off sporadic small arms fire and continued on a straight line course for the evacuation sight, now stripped of their infantry cover. The two rear scarabs hunkered down and began hosing the marine positions with fire from their secondary turrets and main guns. The marines used the drainage ditches to evade covenant reprisal and concentrated fire on the damaged walker.

Daisy signed to Li and Isaac with two fingers and flicked her wrist down the drainage ditch towards the lead scarabs. Two green lights flashed affirmative in her HUD. The Spartans set off in a fast trot hefting satchels full of thermite charges and grenades. Daisy listened in on the marine battle net, it was vital the Scarabs remained uncoordinated, the whole plan depended on breaking off each Scarab and eliminating them in detail.

"This is Sergeant Presley, 3rd Platoon is combat ineffective, repeat, we have taken heavy casualties."

"Fire team Bravo, rockets expended, falling back."

A wash of static filled the radio, then, "Rear scarab is down but still firing, sappers, storm it with demo charges. Concentrate fire on the remaining Scarab in the kill box."

The lead Scarab crossed the drainage ditch ahead of the team and right into a waiting ambush. Charges hurriedly drilled into the tarmac by combat engineers detonated turning the flat surface into a broken field of concrete, dirt, and mud. The blast staggered the Scarab and did light damage to its legs but did little to slow it down.

"This is Wolloby team to Calamity Dog, charges have had negligible effect." A woman's voice crackled over the coms. "Will observe movements and continue to report in."

"Calamity Dog confirms Wallaby, Vermilion, I hope you can pull this off."

"The situation is well in hand." Daisy said. The second Scarab came into view and Daisy nearly froze in place. Up close it was immense, its bulk filling her field of view, each leg was over four stories tall and supported a body as large as a cargo shuttle. Her training took hold as she unhooked the rapid ascent unit from her pack. The small device consisted of a modified M67 personal grenade launcher, a spool of cable rated for six tons, and a high torque electric motor and gear box capable of pulling a ton and a half straight up at half a meter per second.

Deftly peeling the nonstick plastic cover from the adhesive round, Daisy took aim and fired. The adhesive activated on contact with air and formed a tight bond where it impacted with the Scarabs hull. Working quickly she secured the RAU to her chest, engaged the gearbox and began realing in the cable. Li swung above her as the Scarab took another step but managed to keep from tangling in her line.

They reached the scarabs underbelly and set quickly to work shimmying across the hull to the walker's side. Schematics of destroyed Scarabs had identified no significant weak points, even the vehicle's joints were robust by virtue of size. However, the hinges and locking mechanisms of the rear crew hatches, protected in armored alcoves, were comparatively thin.

A horn call blasted over the Scarab's external speakers and the walker bucked violently, nearly flinging Daisy off before Isaac grabbed her arm and pulled her up onto the top deck, the scarab squatted and shook again, trying to fling the Spartans from its deck.

"Looks like they know we're coming." Li said.

"Good thing we brought the party favors." Isaac hefted his satchel of explosives. Plasma fire stitched along the hull forcing the three to take cover around a crew hatch. The lead Scarab was attempting to dislodge them.

Daisy looked over the locking mechanism and set to work placing thermite charges on the hinges and locking mechanisms. A few seconds to prime the magnesium fuses and she shouted "Clear!". Even in their armor the Spartans cringed away from the white hot chemical reaction that proceeded to burn its way through the door.

Isaac delivered a solid kick to the ruined hatch knocking it inward and then ducked back into cover as a stream of plasma bolts burst from inside. Daisy clenched a fist and Li tossed a grenade through the hatch. Alien chattering came from inside and then a dull wump followed by screams of pain. Li followed the first grenade with two more, waited for the twin explosions and then swept in with his shotgun. Daisy followed shouldering her assault rifle and Isaac took up the rear.

The inside of the Scarab was cramped, packed with the machinery necessary to support the huge vehicle. The first corridor was filled with the mangled remains of its crew. Mostly grunt gunners and technicians. An elite appeared from behind cover and fired a burst of plasma fire, the shots seared bulkhead paneling and blew out control panels. A shot impacted daisies shoulder spinning her sideways and causing her to hiss in pain as the heat from the shot burned through to the armor's gel layer, scalding her skin. Li stepped out of cover and caught the Elite in the face with a shotgun blast, overloading its shields, he quickly stepped inside the Elite's reach as it stumbled backwards and delivered a spear hand blow to the throat, crushing its wind pipe and leaving the alien to strangle.

A pack of grunts tried to ambush them at a T-junction, most likely the surviving members of the Scarab's gunnery crew. A well tossed grenade and a quick burst of assault rifle fire ended them quickly.

"Which way from here?" Daisy scanned the junction, from memory the top level was the gun deck, weapons were managed from here, the lower level housed the main reactor and cockpit.

Li pointed down the corridor leading to the Scarab's starboard side. A second T-junction led to a ramp that descended to the control deck. More plasma fire shot up from the lower deck and was met by another pair of grenades and a blind burst of assault rifle fire. Li snaked a fiber optic cable around the corner and signaled clear. Daisy and Isaac took the lead and halted at the bottom of the ramp, Isaac held up three fingers, scissored his index and middle finger together and then spread them apart.

Daisy counted to three and then swept around the corner. An Elite swiped its arm at chest height. Daisy ducked and used her momentum to perform a roll, narrowly missing the energy blade that would have otherwise disemboweled her. She spun round took aim and and managed to squeeze off two shots before leaping backwards to avoid a downward swipe. She deflected a second strike with her rifle, out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of her team mates struggling with a second Elite. That was all she had time for before her attacker launched another quick series of attacks. The alien didn't let up the pressure, it knew its fellow wouldn't last long two on one and needed to finish her before it found itself in an unwinnable situation.

Daisy was running out of room to backpedal, she brought her rifle up in an overhead block catching the Elite's bone crunching strike at the wrists. The rifle buckled in her hands, nearly splitting in two. You've got to be kidding. A quick kick to the stomach drove her back. Daisy pressed herself against the bulkhead. The Elite was damn good with that sword, maybe there was a way to use it to her advantage. Slipping a hand behind her back, the Elite hesitated, cautious now that its prey was cornered. She found the pouch she wanted and in one smooth movement, chucked it at the elite.

The Elite blocked reflexively, the energy sword neatly bisecting the object. It had been a mistake. The rifle magazine went off like a case of fire crackers as the confined plasma of the Elite's sword superheated the shell casings. The Elite roared in surprise, mandibles flying open and staggered back giving Daisy time to draw her sidearm. Six shots to the chest overloaded the Covenant soldier's portable shield. A seventh shot was deflected off the Elite's shoulder armor as the alien dropped all pretense of subtlety and simply tackled her into the bulkhead. The impact stunned her and she felt something in her shoulder crackle unpleasantly, her left arm fell limp.

The elite batted the M6C pistol from her hand and drew its sword back to deliver a stabbing blow through the visor of her helmet. The Elite paused, blinked curiously and then fell to its knees arms going limp, mouth open wide in surprise. The alien didn't let out a sound as it collapsed dead from the combat knife buried in its back. Isaac stood over the dead creature, "You okay?"

"Few bruised ribs, dislocated my shoulder, otherwise I'm fine." Isaac felt her limp arm gingerly causing her to wince in pain, "Not dislocated, feels like you fractured something, probably can't feel it through the adrenaline." Daisy nodded as Isaac removed a thin canister from his pack and slid its needle thin nozzle into a valve on the shoulder of her armor. She grunted slightly as the biofoam spread through her shoulder and quickly set, the foam would degrade later or be flushed from her system with a solvent, in the meantime it gave her back the use of her left arm, she rotated her shoulder stiffly and flexed her fingers.

"Okay I'm good." She said, taking a spare magazine and reloading her sidearm, she also removed the dead Elite's sword and holstered rifle. "Let's go."

The Spartans trooped down the corridor with Daisy bringing up the rear, the Elite at the control station looked up from the ring of displays surrounding his seat as they entered the walker's cockpit and Isaac shot it out of hand before it had a chance to activate its shields. They felt the Scarab lurch to a halt.

"That takes care of that." Daisy said. "Isaac, set the charges on the reactor." She keyed her com and suddenly was flooded with background noise. "Calamity Dog this is Sierra-2-3, target two has been neutralized, will scuttle scarab and withdraw to friendly lines, over."

"Sierra-2-3 this is Calamity dog, that is a negative on withdrawal, target one is still advancing and target three has decimated the ambush team, advise you to attempt a delaying action." The radio crackled.

"Will we be receiving additional support? Over." Daisy asked.

"No assets can be spared at this time. Over."

Daisy bit her lip, "Affirmative Calamity Dog, this is Sierra-2-3, over and out."

"We don't have the firepower to bring down two more scarabs." Li said.

Daisy's eyes drifted to the control console where the alien pilot still sat limply. "Well, actually, we do. Isaac, forget the charges."

"Daisy, your not thinking of . . ." Isaac began.

"She is." Li finished matter of factly.

"This can't possibly work." Isaac said.

"What makes you so sure? We've run the simulations on covenant equipment before." Daisy said as she began tugging at the dead pilot with her good arm, Li took the dead alien by the armpits and lifted it bodily from the pilot's seat.

"Those were ghosts and banshees, not a Scarab." Isaac countered.

"How different can it be?" She said sarcastically as she settled into the pilots seat and scanned the controls for any familiar symbols. An uncomfortable sense of deja vu came over her as she began keying in commands. The phenomena had been reported by virtually every UNSC soldier that had used Covenant equipment. A strange sense of familiarity and an intuitive grasp of controls. The best theory UNSC scientist had was that using the broad sample base of intelligent minds available to it, the Covenant had developed a symbolic language that was intuitive to any intelligent species. Daisy didn't know if she bought that sketchy line of reasoning, but whatever caused it sure was convenient.

Screens flickered to life showing external views of the Scarab's environment, they had come to a halt amongst the hangar bays used to service and maintain atmospheric aircraft and shuttles. A small metallic sphere jutted from the center of the console at waist height. Taking a guess Daisy lightly cupped the sphere in her hands. A holographic overlay appeared over the sphere, she took a breath and rotated her hands forward, the holographic overlay followed her hands and the Scarab shuddered into motion. She tried twisting one hemisphere back slightly and the scarab began to list to the side. Beneath her helmet Daisy grinned. "I think I can manage this, it looks like path finding is automated, the pilot just tells the Scarab which way to go and the onboard systems handle the rest. Li, Isaac, man the guns."

Her fellow Spartans gave small nods and retreated up the rear ramp to the fire control stations. "Calamity Dog, this is Sierra-2-3, we have commandeered a Scarab and are in pursuit of target one."

There was a long static filled pause, "Uh, Sierra-2-3 can you repeat that last message."

"Repeat, Vermilion team has acquired target two and is moving to engage target one from behind, please update our IFF."

"Uhm, right, very good, please proceed on a direct northerly heading at best speed. Be advised, do not attempt any shots that might hit the transports."

"Affirmative Calamity Dog, Sierra-2-3 over and out."

On the main display hangars gave way to more open tarmac. The lead Scarab had built up a respectable lead in the time they were stopped but it was still within firing range. "Li, Isaac, have either of you found anything that looks like the fire control for the main gun."

"Negative here." Isaac said.

"The same." Li replied. "The controls may be on the pilots console."

If I were designing a giant walking death machine I'd put the main gun controls right about, here. Daisy hit a holographic symbol that vaguely resembled a bullseye. A whole line of symbols changed and crosshairs appeared at the center of the main monitor. A little experimentation revealed that the crosshairs were aligned by way of a second holographic display to the right of the main console.

"Now here goes nothing." Daisy closed her hands around the control sphere and a jet of plasma shot out burning into the rear legs of the lead Scarab. The machine fell forward before its pilot corrected and began ponderously turning his vehicle to face the unexpected attack. The Covenant Scarab opened fire with it top mounted secondaries rocking the Spartans' machine and scouring the armor.

Daisy set her scarab in a crab walk that carried it behind the cover of burnt out warehouse. "Isaac, Li, we need our turrets online or we're going to be out gunned."

"We've got it figured out." Isaac assured her, "Just get us an angle."

Daisy pushed the controls full forward, driving her Scarab through the ruined warehouse. Aluminum girders snapped and walls disintegrated in clouds of wood splinters and gypsum. Their Scarab erupted from the ruins and came face to face with its sister walker.

Secondary cannons opened fire as the two machines advanced. There was no finesse in how the Covenant crew handled their vehicle. It occurred to Daisy that the Covenant may never have considered the possibility that a Scarab might be hijacked. It would be like a shuttle full of Indies stealing a Marathon class cruiser. The Spartans could use that to their advantage.

"Brace for impact!" Daisy shouted and moved the Scarab into a charge. The starboard side of the Spartans' Scarab crashed into its opponents front leg, metal shrieked as the limb was pushed up and back before yielding under the terrible strain. On her monitors Daisy could see the limb was still semi functional but clearly damaged. The Covenant pilot managed to keep its machine balanced. Spreading the three good legs wide the Covenant Scarab's main gun unhinged and began to glow.

That's new. Daisy thought and shoved the controls to the side just in time to evade a bolt of white hot star stuff. The bolt boomed past the Spartan Scarab and smashed into the ground ten kilometers away generating an impressive fireball and a small mushroom cloud.

"Concentrate fire on the main gun." Li shouted.

Daisy took a second look at the symbols that had appeared after activating the main gun. The ten little symbols that would probably lead to their own further series of menus. The Spartans were at a disadvantage in this fight, the Covenant Scarab was fully manned and its crew had an intimate knowledge of its capabilities. Having nothing to lose Daisy started tapping tiles picking one then another, more by feel than any logic. The first menu shared symbols with the target selection controls on a banshee, she keyed her way back to the main menu and went through a few others. most of the menus appeared to be for more technical adjustments to the weapons. The Scarab rocked again under fire. The Covenant Scarab's main gun was a charred ruin and its damaged side had faired little better. If the displays were saying what she thought their own machine was doing even worse. The Covenant gunners were concentrating fire near the joints, probably trying to burn through the power junctions.

A final key command caused the targeting crosshairs to change shape. Daisy clamped her hands together and hard a loud whine as capacitors built up a charge. On the main monitor the Covenant machine did something she hadn't believed possible. It jumped. Daisy's shot passed safely beneath the Covenant machine as it rocketed into the sky on some sort of anti-gravity system. She twisted back on the controls hastily backpedaling just before the Covenant machine came crashing down on their position. The walker's damaged leg gave way under the landing and the machine sank nearly to the ground. Daisy took the chance and advanced full speed. Her Scarab registered the fallen machine as an obstacle and climbed over it. Fifteen hundred tons of war machine supported on needle thin legs impaled the weakened forward section of the Covenant walker. Daisy turned around, took aim, and fired the main gun. The scarab was blown in half in a brilliant flash of white and blue, fragments of armor and weapons were hurled high into the air.

Daisy leaned back and took a deep breath.

"Damn," Isaac said, "This really is like that old movie."

"It was the third one." Li said.

"What?"

"They stole the walker in the third movie. The ice field was in the second."

"Sierra-2-3, this is Wallaby team, confirmed target one destroyed, I like your work, Spartans." The female voice from earlier came over the coms.

"Affirmative Wallaby team. Anything to report on target three?"

"We lost it in the smoke earlier but the drones caught sight of it diverting to some sort of large trench just a few seconds ago, looks like its trying to bypass your position and link up with the main armored thrust before advancing."

Daisy brought up a map of the spaceport on her HUD. "It's a large gauge rail line used for moving ships to and from the launch pads." Daisy said. "Vermilion team will intercept."

"Sierra-2-3 this is Calamity Dog, belay that, 2nd Battalion of the 415th is moving down the North-10 highway with the last of the civilian evacuees, Scorpion and Python units will break off and engage the Scarab. Vermillion team, you have a new mission, a tier one asset has been reported missing from the the evac sight." An image file blinked up in Daisy's HUD showing a dark skinned woman with black hair done up in short spikes. "This is Doctor Annea Zan, she's a civilian contractor working for ONI. She was escorted to the spaceport by a squad of ODSTs before the fighting started. Doctor Zan disappeared about the time the Covenant started landing troops at the port."

"A kidnapping?" Daisy asked. It didn't seem likely, the covenant were likelier to feed a prisoner to the jackals and their few reported attempts at interrogation had been clumsy at best.

"Not likely." The voice on the other end of the line gave an exacerbated sigh. "We think she bolted when she heard the time table for evacuation was going to be moved up. We believe she's attempting to retrieve her research data. Priority cargo was being housed at the trans shipment hub. It's outside our defensive perimeter and we've had intermittent reports of jackals and Elite rangers in the area."

Daisy checked her map of the spaceport. The shipping hub was situated about half a kilometer from the launch pads, a large hexagonal building with roads spanning out from it in a radial pattern.

"Affirmative, Vermillion team will get it done." She said.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2- Into the Wild

Aldrin spaceport's single passenger terminal was built beneath an elegant arched lattice of steel girders meant to be reminiscent of Kings Cross train station back on Earth. When evacuation had begun, Navy and Marine personnel had converted the building into a processing facility for refugees which had promptly been overwhelmed by escaping civilians. The sound of fighting was distant here, muted by buildings designed to muffle even the subsonic roar of a starship landing. The marines had drawn their final defensive line around the terminal and the surrounding launch pads and were now holding until the transports could finish loading. Out on the pads navy technicians and Jotuns were sealing modular cargo pods and installing emergency life support gear and radiation shielding.

UNSC officers and enlisted men were all over the place, talking with refugees, compiling lists of evacuated personnel, and consoling families who had lost love ones in the confusion and fighting. Maybe half of the colonies population, mostly technicians and agriculture specialists employed by the corporate farms, but also a few homesteaders trying to eek out an independent existence, had managed to make it to Aldrin.

Clare could feel the tension in the air, nerves on edge, the smell of unwashed humanity mingled with the antiseptics sprayed to keep infection down creating a sour odor that seemed to settle on the skin and seep into clothes and hair. Most of these people had been here for two or three days, the stream of survivors ebbing to a trickle as the Covenant cut off the roads and slowly tightened the noose around Aldrin.

Someone grabbed her by the wrist. A woman, filthy but with bright desperate eyes looked at her. "Please, have you seen my Sasha? I've been looking for him all day, he wondered off last night. Please can't you do something?"

Clare flinched, the woman was on the edge of hysteria, if she made a scene it could cascade into a riot. She put on a brave face and smiled kindly. "I'm sure your son is alright miss, children have high priority for evacuation, someone may have seen him on his own and sent him up to the pads." It was a white lie, UNSC command placed priority on preserving personnel deemed vital to the war effort but women and children were afforded any extra seats on evacuation craft.

The woman sagged, "Yes, that's what the Lieutenant said, I just, there has to be something I can do to find him. I feel so useless." Clare gave the woman's hand an encouraging squeeze.

"Keep it together alright, worrying yourself sick won't help your son. Just stay strong, you can't do anything now but when the transports get clear I'm sure you'll be able to find him." Clare didn't know if she was getting through to her but the woman nodded noncommitaly and sat down, fidgeting.

She wanted to do more for her. Part of Clare wanted to tell the woman everything would be alright, that she would go up to the launch pads and personally check the passenger manifests that the swabbies were compiling, but she knew it was pointless. For every lost child she found there would a hundred more mothers desperate for her help, and what happened when she had to tell one of them that they would never see their baby again? It was one of the first things the Corp beat out of you. You couldn't help everyone, the best you could hope for was to help as many as possible, and the best way for a marine to do that was to be a marine.

She caught sight of her Sergeant talking with the Company Commander, 1st Lieutenant Phillip Jackson, a short troll of a man with scars running across the right side of his shaved scalp.

As she approached Clare caught some of the conversation. "She gave us the slip about an hour ago, we didn't realize she was missing until we called roll call on the VIPs aboard the Yates. Command's saying we shouldn't worry our sweet heads about her."

"She went back for her research?" Ghost asked. The Sergeant's name was Michael Weiss but he was always called "Searge" or "Ghost." Battalion rumor was that he used to be part of a marine infiltrator team, a rumor that he neither confirmed nor denied. Maybe it was better that they didn't know for sure, it kept them in awe. Like most marine units the 422nd RRB was a "freshy" formation filled with a handful of veterans and lots of raw recruits. It was that sense of professionalism that let the platoon trust him, he knew what he was doing and as long as they followed him he would do his best to get them all out alive.

"Maybe. That's what command thinks anyways, and you're going to go get her."

"Sir?" Clare heard the tension in Ghosts voice, 2nd platoon had alread taken losses and been run ragged over the last few days, not even the Sergeant would fancy another run out into the meat grinder.

"Orders came down from the Colonel, seems our fearless leader is the one ONI is going to pin the blame on if their scientist doesn't get out nice and safe. You are to take a team and secure Doctor Zan for retrieval." The Lieutenant stepped forward and whispered something in the Sergeant's ear.

"Hnn. Yes Sir." Ghost said.

Clare stiffened as he turned to face her. "Get the platoon together, we've got new orders. Looks like some ONI Doctor has gotten in over her head. Drone's picked up her CNS implant during a flyover about five minutes ago, she's in the transshipping hub. We need to go retrieve her before she gets her head shot off. Meet me in front of the terminal in five minutes."

"Yes Sir." Clare snapped and keyed the Platoon frequency on her com. By the time everyone was assembled the Sergeant was quietly pacing in front of a door marked maintenance. Clare eyed the gathered platoon, they'd dropped from the Aurora of Winter with sixty four marines, now she counted fifty two, not all were fatalities but even the wounded had been pretty bad. Clare felt herself swallow.

"It seems the higher ups have lost something. A scientist by the name of Annea Zan." Ghost began. He hunkered down and palmed a portable projector onto the floor. The device came silently to life showing a multi layered map of the spaceport. "These are the maintenance tunnels that run underneath the tarmac. They're mostly used by service Jotuns to move around. Taking tunnel C9 we have a straight shot to the transshipment hub, Dr. Zan's last known location. I won't lie to you, this could get ugly, Command has stepped in the shit with some ONI brass and now they're sending us to cover their asses."

There was murmuring amongst the platoon, the Sergeant had never been so frank.

Ghost stood and looked over his platoon. "That's why I'm only asking for volunteers, I'd like to do this with an eight man squad. Cut down our foot print on the Covenant battle net."

The marines fidgeted nervously or stood perfectly still lest they draw attention to themselves. The silence was broken by Lance Corporal Pachenko from Hotel Team. The short marksmen looked left and right and then shrugged. "Ah hell, we owe'm for Mao." The other two surviving members of Hotel team, PFCs Kyle Madison and Darwan Mabuto stepped forward without hesitation.

Clare closed her eyes and took a step forward. The sound of boots at her back let her know that her team was with her.

Ghost nodded as he looked over the volunteers. "Grab some spare mags and follow me. Corporal Billinghurst, you're in command here."

Ghost lead the team down into the maintenance tunnels built beneath the building. Emergency lights cast everything in deep orange and the passages were cramped with pipes.

"I don't like this man, how can we be sure the Covenant haven't infiltrated the maintenance tunnels?" PFC Jesus Rodriguez asked.

"We're still getting video from some of the port's security cameras, the Covenant either hasn't noticed the tunnels or doesn't realize what they are." Ghost said.

The squad spread out along the tunnel. Pachenko at the lead followed by Ghost, Madison, and Mabuto at varying intervals. Clare and her team clustered further back and Jesus took up the rear. The tunnels offered security but also great danger, in a confined space all it would take was one jackal to slaughter them all. As they proceeded into the darkness Clare wondered if they would ever come back out.

Lieutenant Commander Hideki Kano watched the tactical display with a growing sense of bitter resignation. Over the past three days the fleet had engaged the covenant flotilla throughout the space surrounding Lorelei. UNSC losses so far had been heavy. Six destroyers, four frigates, and the carrier Arc Royal in exchange for a covenant corvette and two destroyers. The surviving UNSC ships had fallen back to high orbit to lick their wounds and resupply. Strangely the Covenant hadn't taken the advantage to attack. But then, a lot of things were strange about this battle. The Covenant bothering to land ground forces had been exceptional, as was their caution in space.

Kano just wished they would hurry up and attack so it could be done with, he wanted an end to the waiting, and in on the fight. The UNSC Of Fire Forged had been sidelined for the entire battle sitting in low orbit providing tactical support to the marines planet side. At first they'd hit a few Covenant landing zones with ortillery strikes but as the fighting closed on the spaceport the Commander had called a halt lest they strike a marine forward position. They're biggest contribution to the space battle had been retrieving a longsword squadron orphaned with the destruction of the Arc Royal.

"Perk up there!" A small clipped voice chimed from the hologram projector beside his station. A tiny golden figure of a girl in a bright yellow blouse and black skirt sprung to life. She floated a few centimeters from the pad, arms legs stretched out straight and hair floating like she was in zero gee.

"I'm fine Mary." Kano said. Mary was a seventh generation "dumb" AI and despite the name was frighteningly clever within her fields of expertise; even her avatar was a carefully calculated play with its childish demeanor and cheerful expressions designed to be endearing.

Mary clucked disapprovingly. "Now, now, you can't lie to me, no sir! I've got zillions of sensors all over telling me everything from your body temperature to pheromone emissions, you're upset."

Kano snorted and waved a hand through the avatar at head height. "And I imagine you know why."

She grinned wolfishly. "You want in on the action. Well I for one am glad we're on stand bye. The Forged is a light frigate, we'd get maybe one good shot and then be blown to smithereens." She lamented.

Kano had to admit, grudgingly, that Mary was right. The Of Fire Forged was a lightweight, even by frigate standards. One of the new Endymion class ships that was a variant of the older Hyperion class frigates that composed most of the fleet. The new designs had been drawn up by UNSC engineers and AIs after studying human naval engagements with the Covenant. It had been concluded that in naval battles the life expectancy for the average frigate was about 0.22 engagements. In comparison a destroyer survived an average of 0.49 engagements and a cruisers 1.17. However UNSC frigates were able to overwhelm Covenant warships in wolf packs and were easily manufactured by virtually any large shipyard freeing up the military docks over Earth, Mars, and Reach to manufacture the heavier destroyers, cruisers, and carriers needed for mankind's far reaching counter offensives.

A new design philosophy had evolved around building a lighter, cheaper, modular frigate. A polite euphemism for expendable. Engineers had taken the scissors to a standard Hyperion class, stripping thirty centimeters of titanium-A armor and tearing out the "toy box" vehicle bay used to support ground operations. The secondary coil guns had been removed and a more extensive Helix array had been mounted in its place. The maximum marine complement was reduced to a single company with a small inernalized hangar bay holding a squadron of Pelican dropships and light vehicles. The integrated longsword fighter bays had been removed and fittings for mission specific modules had been added in their place. In the case of the Forged those modules served the same purpose as dedicated singleship hangars.

The resulting ship was a lean mean bitch that packed the same main gun as a normal frigate but massed a third less and was significantly cheaper to produce. The lightened hull offered better performance from the frigate's engines and allowed the ship to tolerate more violent maneuvers but it came at the price of being a glass cannon. Covenant Pulse lasers and even Seraph singleships were a severe threat and she had no chance of surviving a plasma torpedo hit.

"Isn't that a sign of cowardice? You know, dissertion in the face of the enemy." Kano teased. He knew it wasn't the right time but he also knew he needed it, and knew that Mary knew.

"Not at all. It's only cowardice if I act on it." Mary huffed. "Besides the ship is my body I have every reason to be worried about what happens to it. If we get into a fight its my shapely little heat sinks that get blown off."

"And what a loss that would be." Commander Johann Bosch said nonchalantly.

"Eep!" Mary's hologram flickered out of existence and Kano stood to face his superior.

"At ease." Commander Bosch said. The Commander wasn't much older than Kano himself, maybe early thirties. There weren't many old officers in the navy these day. He leaned over Kano's chair and studied the displays. There was nothing on Kano's screens that wasn't slaved to the main tactical plot but he'd noticed the Commander liked to go around and conspire with each of his bridge officers, a sort of nervous habit.

"Funny how the Covenant are acting, wouldn't you say?"

Kano sensed that this was leading into something and nodded. "Yes, sir. It's been bothering me." Speculation amongst the bridge crew was rampant, ranging from subjects for experimentation to armed subjugation, but none of the theories had any basis in what was happening on the ground.

"Perhaps they're trying to learn something about us, take a closer look at our technology, looking for better ways to wipe us out." Bosch said thoughtfully.

"They seem plenty good at that already." Kano said.

"I don't know about that, Admiral Cole has kicked their teeth in a few times now and Fleet numbers have actually been going up. We've never seen more than a few dozen Covenant ship at any engagement, maybe we have them outnumbered. Or maybe we've finally gotten them to respect us."

Kano kept a neutral expression. Fat chance of that. It was true that military production had skyrocketed since first contact at Harvest. In the last six years Fleet production had peeked at just over two thousand Capital ships annually. Survivors from the devastated outer colonies had flushed the ranks of the UNSC armed services and moral in the inner colonies was high thanks to a carefully managed media campaign. But the hard math was still against them. It took the UNSC a three to one numerical advantage to secure victory under ideal circumstances, more often than not it was closer to seven to one, and if the Covenant was strained for numbers they were hiding it well.

"Or maybe there's something down there they want. Some rare mineral or resource."

"Sir?"

Bosch leaned in conspirationaly. "Something's up. Remember that strange NavSpecWep team that boarded in a hurry back on New Salem?" How could he forget; three uniformly tall emotionless goons and a dark skinned ONI Captain who'd gone by the name of "Lynch". "That ONI spook thats been overseeing the ground side operations has been tapping the geo survey satellites. I want you and Mary to backtrack him and find out what he's been looking at."

"Sir, is that wise?" Kano asked. He'd heard what happened to people who butted in on ONI business, or more worryingly, he hadn't.

"ONI brass likes to think they're clever but half the time they're just muddling the facts to fit their own ends." Bosch said. "I'm happy being a pawn so long as the game makes sense but I'd like to know if I'm being burned."

The Commander leaned back, "Of course it's as likely to be nothing, I'd just rather be prepared."

Kano watched the Bosch's retreating back until he was through the bridge hatch then turned back to his console. Mary's hologram flickered back to life and she looked worried.

"Never seen the Commander like that." She said. "Heart rate was elevated, blood pressure was up, pupils very slightly dilated, he was scared."

"Of the Covenant or of that ONI agent?" Kano asked.

The AI gave a shrug, "If I had to guess, both."

Kano sighed, at least the commander's request would keep him busy. "Okay, we don't want that ONI spook to find out we're on to him. How did the Commander find out about the feed without tipping him off?"

"I told him. The Captain asked me to keep a log of all incoming and outgoing transmissions ever since Lynch came aboard, seems he's pulling the strings on ground operations by the way, relaying orders through the regimental Commander. I've been registering a tight beam maser signal on the lower communications dish for the last twelve hours."

"I thought you had complete access to the intraship network, can't you just read what he's looking at."

The avatar squirmed uncomfortably, Kano didn't know if an AI was capable of real distress but Mary was being pretty damn convincing. "Normally yes, but Captain Lynch has partitioned off some of my processing nodes, that includes the the systems responsible for our secondary communications array. I was able to identify the signal by going through the diagnostics computers and I'm even able to access some of the other systems, but if I go anyplace near that data stream . . ." The avatar seemed to shiver. "There's something there, very high level counter intrusion software or maybe even an AI. Whatever it was I had to back off when it detected me. I think it was warning. Kano, I can't beat an ONI AI, not in a cyber war."

Kano whistled to himself. An AI upped the stakes significantly, but he was willing to bet the Spook would be keeping it on a short leash lest it draw too much attention. "Are any of the systems under you're control compromised?"

"No, my network security subroutines haven't detected anything, and I would definitely notice if someone tried to force access."

"One more thing, is this, legal?"

Mary's hologram flickered for a second, "Tough to say. Strictly speaking Captain Lynch is a superior officer, interphering with any lawful actions would be considered insubordination. We may be violating operational security, but then again, those laws are designed to prosecute willful violations which we can't be accussed of unless we are ordered to desist. At most we could be reprimanded for passing his activities up to a higher command."

Kano didn't hesitate. "If that's the case, then we'll need to avoid tipping him off. If we can't spy on him in our own network, how about the satellites, I assume they have their own network."

"Yes." Mary replied a little stiffly. This was Turing breaking territory. Talk to a dumb AI within their field of expertise and they could be delightfully human, get them out of their comfort zone and they became little more than powerful tools.

"Okay, try to isolate their carrier."

"Working." Mary said.

It took Kano about two hours to do something that would have taken him two weeks without AI support. Built for it or not Mary was invaluable for communicating with the dumb satellites and translating their code into something he could understand and manipulate. The final solution had been rather elegant, once in the system he had registered the Forged as another satellite, he'd then piggybacked through the maintenance system to the satellite acting as a hub router for the entire orbital network. The satellites were civilian models meant to provide data for weather forecasting, surveying, and prospecting. They were simple, rugged, and stupid. Which was what Kano had been hoping for.

The big risk was that the satellites had the hardware to run whatever counter intrusion software the ONI spook had in the Forged's systems. As it turned out their ICE protocols were non-existent, there was no reason for them not to be. The Lorelei planetary government made all survey data public domain and the satellites were too stupid to be hacked, on board systems were hard coded for the most part.

They couldn't be hacked, but they could be tricked. A few key strokes and he was ready. "Mary, do we know the position of the hub satellite?"

"One moment." The AI said. "The hub satellite, designation TDR103 is currently in geo synchronous orbit cresting the horizon at twelve minutes to starboard SRO."

"These are pretty standard satellites, we should have a system emulator on file."

"Affirmative." Mary said. "As of UNSC protocol C38-201 all unmanned civilian spacecraft must be capable of running in full compatibility with UNSC systems."

Kano grinned, "Good. I want you to train our main communications array on that satellite, flood out its receivers with junk noise."

"Aye. Transmitting now."

On Kano's terminal a series of error messages opened informing that TDR103 was suffering an unknown system error and that control would be handed off to TDR1111. The satelites made the switch and seamlessly fell into Kano's command. He grinned like an idiot and felt a mild adrenaline rush, he'd just outsmarted an ONI agent. The elation was short lived however, he was honest enough to realize that the Spook knew the satellites were his weak link and if he did in fact have an AI it would be looking for any abnormalities in the data stream. Rather than risking detection tracking the signal inside the network, Kano grabbed archive data from the last twenty four hours and pulled out. It took twenty seconds for the compressed files to stream in over the Forged's high bandwidth antenna.

"Okay Mary now on to something you're good at." Kano said.

"That's a relief, just tell me what you need."

"I want you to run a comparison of geo survey data against a composite from our surveillance satellites and drones. Look for any overlapping anomalies, unusual formations, large covenant troops concentrations, whatever."

"Mary nodded, it'll take a few minutes. That ONI agent has Shanghaied a lot of my processing power."

It took considerably longer than a few minutes. Kano occupied himself double checking their network security, there was no sign the Spook was on to them. Half an hour later Mary's hologram flashed to life. "I've got it!"

"You have what?" Kano asked excited to see the results of his handiwork.

"I overlapped the geo survey data with our own surveillance data and did a search at 200 DPM across the entire planetary surface. There's a strong concentration of Covenant troops over some sort of excavation site in the Heimdoll ranges. I think ONI found something there, and now the Covenant are digging it up!"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A floor tile shook, once, twice, then popped out of place. A fiber cable snaked through the small opening, swept the surroudnings and then retracted. Weiss pushed the floor panel aside and lifted himself up out of the maintenance tunnel. A quick sweep showed the room to be some sort of janitorial closet. Caretaker Jotuns sat still in their charging racks and cleaning supplies lined the walls. Weiss gave the all clear.

Pachenko took up a covering position on the door and Weiss opened it quietly. They were in a hallway, probably part of the building's administrative offices. Floor to ceiling glass panels ran along one wall revealing rows of servers and the cargo sorting area beyond.

"Man this is spooky." Madison said as he swept the hall with his rifle. This was a place that ought to be busy, not abandoned. Even the fighting outside sounded muted.

"Where to from here?" Pachenko asked softly.

Clare pulled a flex reader from a vest pocket and opened up the shipping manifests. "Priority cargo was being stored in H-bay. Looks like mostly scientific equipment."

Can you narrow it down? Weiss asked.

"Just a sec . . . Okay, looks like there is a shipping container registered in the name of Doctor Annea Zan, H-bay, block twelve." Clare said.

"You got directions?"

Clare nodded, "Yeah, this way."

The team advanced cautiously. Pachenko and Weiss taking the lead while the rest of the squad followed at irregular intervals. H-bay was a maze of shipping containers managed by automatic forklifts and ceiling mounted cranes. Delta team took up overwatch positions on the catwalks that overlooked the whole bay while Weiss advanced with Clare and Charlie team.

"Ghost, this is Duke," the voice of Lieutenant Jackson hailed them on the platoon frequency. "Be advised that you have a Scarab approaching your location, advise that you find the Tier One and withdraw ASAP, over."

"This is Ghost, Understood."

"Shit man, I didn't sign up for this." Jesus whispered.

The sound of metal on metal came from around the next corner. Weiss motioned for the team to stop. Clare moved up quietly beside him. Weiss ran a fiber cable around the corner and studied the feed on his visor. A container was open, light shown from inside. Weiss put up three fingers and started counting down.

Clare and Weiss swepped around the corner and leveled their weapons on the container. "Doctor Zan." Weiss said. The rustling from inside the container stopped for a moment and then resumed.

Weiss gritted his teeth. "Doctor Annea Zan."

The marines cringed as a woman's voice shouted "Just a moment." Weiss walked up to the crate and yanked the door fully open. Dr. Zan gave him an evil look but otherwise ignored him as she continued to sort through the drawers of a tool box. " Weiss noted an M6D sidearm sitting on one of the boxes, it looked fresh off the assembly line.

"Doctor Zan." Weiss said.

"Bless." She said.

"What?"

"It's Bless, I divorced that asshole two weeks ago, I thought ONI would be faster updating their files."

"We're not from the Office of Naval Intelligence." Weiss said. "You aren't allowed to leave the evacuation area, we're here to escort you back." He tried to put a hand on her shoulder only to have it batted aside.

"I can't leave without my research files." She snapped.

"We really don't have time ma'am, this whole place is about to be crawling with Covenant."

Dr. Bless turned to eye him dangerously and Weiss got the impression that while she was shorter than him by a good thirty centimeters, he was the one being looked down on. "Give me five minutes and I'll go, no complaints."

Weiss shrugged, stepped forward and scooped the petulant scientist up in a fireman's carry. "We're leaving now Doctor." She squirmed ineffectually for a moment and then huffed.

"Fine, but I'm taking that box." She pointed to a shoebox sized black plastic container. Clare picked it up.

"What's in here." She asked.

"That's the heart of my research and that's all you need to know." The woman snapped.

"Fine." Weiss grunted, "Corporal Nelson, secure the Doctor's package, we're done here." Weiss palmed the Doctor's pistol on his was out and stuffed it in an unused pouch.

"Will you put me down now." Doctor Bless asked.

"No." Weiss said flatly. Still hefting the small woman as the squad made their way back towards the access tunnel. The squad came to a stop as the ground beneath their feet began to tremble.

"What the hell was that?" Pachenko shouted.

"Scarab must be getting close." Jesus said.

Weiss let the Doctor slip to the ground and keyed his com. "Ghost to Duke we have the Doctor and are returning to the evacuation site. What was that tremor just now. Over." The response was filled with static and Weiss had to strain to hear it.

"Scarab . . . -osing in . . . shutt- . . . lift off . . . -ot down."

"Say again Duke, what's going on out there?" There was no reply. Weiss cursed and broke into a run the rest of the squad falling in behind him. Even the formerly oblivious Doctor Bless looked nervous now. Weiss' heart sank when they got back to the tunnel. Dust was billowing up through the open access hole.

"This is Ghost to Duke, exit is cut off, what the hell is happening out their?" Weiss shouted.

"Ghost this is Duke. One of the Scarabs got in close and a civie ship captain panicked. He tried to take off and got shot down. The ship came down on the tarmac between the shipping hub and the terminal, looks like its collapsed the maintenance tunnels."

Weiss took a breath, this day was getting worse by the minute. "Can you advise on an alternate route? Over."

"Negative Sergeant. The only other way is overground and I wouldn't advise it without vehicles. Covenant armor is pressing the 415th back to our lines and we still have an active Scarab in the field. The one near your position seems to have been disabled though. Try to stick tight and I'll see if I can vector in a Pelican for pick up. Over."

"Affirmative, Ghost out."

"Sergeant, contact down the hall!" Pachenko's shout was accompanied by a burst of assault rifle fire. Weiss ran back to the door and peered around the corner. "Which way Corporal?"

Pachenko pointed to a doorway off the main hall. "It bolted almost as soon as I saw it, but it was big, maybe an Elite."

Ghost cursed, he'd only faught the Covenant's field commanders on a few occassions. Every time he'd had the luxury of vehicle or artillery support. "Okay, Clare move your team up by numbers. Pachenko, you and your men are with me. Doctor, stick close. We're going to surround the sonofabitch." He motioned Charley team down the hall and took Pachenko and his men down a side corridore. The motion tracker showed a heatsource in the room. They inched up quietly on the door. Ghost gestured to PFC Mabuto. The Private pulled a flash grenade from his pack, frags were minimally effective against an Elites shields but they did nothing to stop the intense flash and high decibel sound of the anti riot device.

"Flash in three." Weiss said into his com.

Mabuto tossed the grenade into the room and all hell let loose. The wall behind Delta team exploded as an elite burst through it like an olympic athlete through wet cardboard. Weiss turned and caught a glimpse of the alien's sealed helmet and heavy jump pack. It was a ranger, one of the alien scout specialists. Pachenko got off a burst of fire before the alien kicked him into the wall producing a wet crack and leaving an indentation where the marine hit. PFC Madison got in close and let loose a shotgun blast at the Elite's exposed back but it's shields held. The Aliens counter swipe broke the unfortunate marines neck. A plasma bolt laid PFC Mabuto out flat on the ground. Weiss pushed Dr. Bless back against the wall interposing himself between her and the alien. The flashbang went off muffled by the damaged wall, silhouetting the Elite. The alien was huge, so tall that it had to hunch its head to avoid touching the ceiling. Weiss switched the fire selector on his rifle to full auto and held down on the trigger, this close he couldn't miss. The alien waded through the fire, slowed but not stopped. It grabbed Weiss by the throat and roared.

"Piss off." Weiss managed to choke out. Weiss wasn't sure what exactly happened next. Either the Elite dropped him by reflex or in preparation to finish him off. But the next thing he knew he was covered in blue blood and their was a gaping hole where the lenses of the Elite's helmet had been.

Weiss coughed as his windpipe reopened. A hand was offered and he took it without looking. As he got to his feet, he looked up, and continued to look up until his eyes met a golden visor. "Sergeant." A calm voice said. His mouth went dry. For a moment Weiss refused to believe the Spartan was standing there, this was some last moment hallucination brought on by oxygen deprivation but the Spartan's battered and discolored armor was just too imperfect.

"Ghost!" Clare shouted. Charlie team had their rifles half aimed not sure what to do. The marines were caught between fight, flight, and awe for the armored figure before them. Weiss wanted to shout at them, where the hell had they been? But before he could he realize the whole fight; the elite smashing through the wall, Delta team going down, and his unlikely savior's arrival, must have all taken place in just a few seconds. A chill went down his spine but he shook it off. Time to worry about mortality later.

"What's a Spartan doing here?" Weiss asked.

"That's classified." The expressionless voice said. "But I would guess the same as you." The Visored helmet turned to the Doctor. "Doctor Zan, it's not safe here."

"It's Bless." The Doctor said icily. "And I agree. I suppose you have a better plan to get us out then this jarhead." She hooked a thumb at Weiss. The woman was rapidly working on his last nerve.

"My team is securing a landing zone on the roof. The Pelican will make a landing there. We're flying you straight up to the Forged." The Spartan looked to Weiss. "Sergeant prep your men for evac."

Weiss nodded and bellowed to his squad. "Marines yank the tags off those bodies, let's go."

"Sergeant, Mabuto's still alive." Clare shouted. Weiss looked to where the marine Private had fallen. Rodriguez and Clare were helping him to his feet, the front of his BDUs and combat vest had been burned to ash and the skin around his chin looked horribly burned but it looked like the trauma plate had done its job for once.

"Glad you're still amongst the living marine. Can you move?" Mabuto gave a weak nod. "Good, then set your boots on the ground and follow the Chief."

They made better time then Weiss would have expected. When Mabuto couldn't keep up the Spartan had hefted the man onto his shoulders and carried him as if he were no heavier than a empty duffle bag. The building shook again and the Spartan came to a stop cocking his head. "We've got a problem. Covenant air support is massing. The Pelican has to pull back."

"Damn, I knew this was too good to be true." Rodriguez muttered.

"Jesus, don't be such a killjoy." PFC Tanaka said. The Lance Corporal winced at the terrible pun.

"If I could offer an opinion." Doctor Bless raised a hand. "Tell me, does that fancy armor of yours have a link to the fleet battlenet."

"It does." The Spartan confirmed.

"Then please send codeword Gorgon on ONI's blue channel." The Doctor ordered.

The Spartan was silent for a moment. "Done."

"Codeword Gorgon? What the hell does that mean?" Weiss asked.

Dr. Bless just smiled, "If I told you, then the Spartan here would have to kill you." She turned back to the Spartan. "Well, it'll all sort itself out now or we'll be dead soon. We'll just have to wait and see if my message worked. Is their anyplace to hole up?"

"This way Doctor." The Spartan said. Weiss shouldered his rifle and followed with what was left of his squad.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Sierra-2-3 to Calamity Dog, we've retrieved Doctor Zan. There's a squad of marines here as well, over."

"Calamity Dog copies, are they a hindrance? Over." Daisy shifted the wounded marine, he groaned but otherwise seemed to be holding up.

"No more than the Doctor. Over."

"Be advised Sierra-2-3, command is calling for a general withdrawal of all planet side personnel. We're going to use the drones to launch a final Kamikaze push against the advancing Covenant forces and secure a window for the transports. Looks like your mission time just got cut in half. Over."

Daisy considered, she was starting to regret the decision to scuttle the Scarab but they couldn't risk it falling back into Covenant hands and it would have drawn far too much attention, anyways after the fighting it had been on its last legs figuratively.

"What's our window? Over."

"Thirty minutes. Countdown had already started for lift off, we've cramming in the last of the civies as we speak." The sound of an F-99 spinning up its engines could be heard from Command's end.

"We'll be on the pad in twenty five." Daisy said.

"Good luck, Calamity Dog out."

Daisy switched to her team's frequency. "Isaac, Li, we're running out of time, any ideas?"

"One actually." Isaac said. "Meet us in the offloading bay on the north side."

The shipping hub had separate dedicated loading and offloading facilities. The distinction was more organizational then anything. Both were identical enclosed concrete aprons backing up elevated stations where the truck trains were parked. Li and Isaac were waiting by the time Daisy's group arrived.

"I hate babysitting." Li muttered on the squad's channel.

"The Doctor's a priority package." Daisy said.

"She's not the one I'm talking about." The Spartan nodded to the marine draped over her shoulders and his compatriots.

Daisy was bothered by the remark but said nothing. She understood the sentiment even if she didn't agree with it.

Doctor Bless looked around the offloading bay. "I assume you have a plan, or did you just think this would be a nice place to die."

By way of explanation Isaac turned back to a pair of large pseudo-bamboo shipping crates. "I saw these on our way in. Li, help me with this." Isaac picked up a heavy steel bar and wedged it into the front of the crate. The nails holding the crate together pulled loose with ease and the front of the container fell away. It took Daisy a moment to register what she was seeing.

"Thank God for imports." Sergeant Weiss said dryly. The crate held what looked to be an LRV-12 but on closer inspection the lines were too clean and the suspension a bit lower. She'd seen the advertisements plastered in the back of hard print magazine and as commercials on billboards back on Reach but never seen one in person.

"Never tell anyone this," Isaac said on a private channel, "But I've always wanted to take one of these for a spin. Just wish it was under better circumstances." He turned to the gathered marines. "We can get across the tarmac with these. In all the fighting they shouldn't draw much attention."

"Sounds good but I doubt they were shipped with a full tank." Daisy said.

"That's not a problem, they're designed for use out in the boonies, they'll burn anything, and there's a refueling station right here for the truck trains."

"You heard the Spartan." Weiss said, "Let's get these vehicles prepped to move. The marines set to work unpacking the civilian Hogs and with the help of the Spartans managed to push them to the fueling stations. The pump system was, fortunately, neumatically powered and had enough pressure left in the pistons to put five gallons of ethanol in each vehicle. The ignition chip hung from the rear view mirror of both vehicles.

Isaac and Li took one Hog with three of the marines piled in back. Daisy took the second vehicle with Doctor Bless and the other three marines, Sergeant Weiss, Corporal Nelson, and Lance Corporal Rodriguez. They maneuvered out of the offloading bay and onto the tarmac. The fighting had worsened rapidly. In the distance the remnants of the 415th were in full retreat, folding in on the marine defensive line around the pads. Cutting the Spartans off from a straight run across the tarmac was the wreckage of one of the civilian cargo ships. Its crash had scattered wreckage across the tarmac and formed an almost impassible obstacle.

"Daisy, follow us, we'll cut threw the shuttle hangars and circle around." Isaac said.

"Roger." The Spartans maneuvered the Hogs through the lambrinth of abandoned hangars. A group of jackals engaged them as they passed an open hangar door but the marines dispatched them. They cut through another open hangar passing beneath a civilian heavy lift shuttle with one of its engines dismantled for maintenance. The shuttle hangars opened up and they found themselves driving parallel to a wide, sloap sided trench curving gently from the starship maintenance yard to the launch pads, the bottom of the trench was lined with eight sets of heavy gauge rails capable of transporting ships massing up to eighty thousand tons.

Plasma fire shot across the tarmac, poorly aimed but in mass forcing the Spartans to drive down the side of the trench for cover. "Heads up, Banshee." Sergeant Weiss shouted, whatever he said next was drowned out by the telltale wine of one of the Covenant's ground attack aircraft coming in fast and low. Plasma bolts traced a line of fire behind Daisy's Hog and she had to swerve to evade.

Assault rifle fire pinged ineffectually against the Banshee's hull. Isaac and Li pulled out ahead, the marines firing everything they had at their pursuer. The Banshee switched its attention to the more immediate threat. "Daisy, get the Doctor to the pad, we'll draw the Banshee and take our chances on a pickup." Before she could say anything Isaac swerved sending his Hog across the tracks and up the oppossite rim of the trench, the Banshee in close pursuit. What happened to Isaac, Li, and the marines after that was unknown to her.

She kept her foot stamped down on the accelerator only climbing back out of the trench as they approached the pads. It was a mistake. Daisy caught something massive out of the corner of her eye and turned back towards the trench. An explosion erupted on the tarmac ahead. Debris struck the front of the Hog, a man sized piece of concrete collided with the right front wheel, tearing off the wheel and its motor housing. The hog came sliding to a halt on the lip of the trench. Doctor Bless shook her head muzzely, "That was interesting." She groaned, unbuckling herself.

"Sergeant?" Daisy asked.

"I'm fine." Weiss grunted. "Marines, sound off."

"I'm okay." Corporal Nelson said. She dropped from the side of the Hog and shouldered her rifle.

"Lance Corporal?" Weiss asked.

After a long moment an answer came, a gasped "Ouch." Daisy turned to look. Corporal Rodriguez had been on the right hand side of the cargo bed. A chunk of tarmac that had narrowly missed Doctor Bless had struck him in the arm, shattering the shoulder and tearing the skin from shoulder to elbow. She could see the white of bone.

"Nelson, get the med kit." Weiss ordered.

"I hate to say this, but we've got bigger problems." Doctor Bless said quietly. She was peering over the lip of the trench, her lips tighlty pressed together. A line of Covenant troops were advancing slowly towards them. Behind the soldiers the surviving Scarab stocked towards the pads. It was the immense war machine that had fired on them. The Scarab was considerably worse for the ware having had to do the job of its three compatriots, its armor was blackened and pitted and several of its secondary weapons were offline, but it was still more than enough to finish the job.

"Any more ideas?" Sergeant Weiss asked.

Daisy shook her head. The Covenant troops had their position, even if she abandoned the Doctor and marines she knew she would be cut down before she could find cover. There was only one thing left to do. "Sierra-2-3 to Calamity Dog, reporting unable to complete mission, say again, mission failed. Sierra-2-3 out."

The call was answered by static. The marines hadn't heard her make the call, but they knew enough to realize what was going on. Corporal Nelson finished administering a painkiller to her wounded team mate. She slid a fresh magazine into her rifle and gave them all a brave smile. "I really wish it didn't have to end this way." She said, it was impossible for her to hide the fear in her voice. Sergeant Weiss put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I just want to know." He said. "Was your research worth it, Doctor?"

The woman gave a weak smile. "For what its worth, it really was. I'm sorry I got you're marines into this."

Something fast and eye searingly bright traced a line across the sky. Only Daisy's enhanced reflexes allowed her to react. She yanked the Doctor down and shielded the huddled marines as best she could.

An archer missile was one of the most devestating coventional weapons in the UNSCs arsenal. A blunt nosed cylinder eight meters long and one meter in diameter. Most of its internal space was devoted to a high power fusion torch engine capable of accelerating the missile at nearly thirty gees. At long range their high explosive warhead was entirely superfluous, they caused devastating damage by pure kinetic energy. In atmosphere an archer missile had to travel significantly slower lest it burn up, even so, its destructive power was still immense.

The missile struck home dead center on the Scarab's body and the walker crumpled in around the impact point, massive limbs pinwheeled away as the missile detonated. The shock wave blew over the trench accompanied by the pealing roar and subsonic boom of the missiles passage.

Daisy's radio crackled. "This is the UNSC Of Fire Forged, we have received you're priority retrieval signal." A woman's voice said. Daisy noted that broadcast was coming in the open. "Doctor Zan, we are homing in on your localized transponder signature, we can hold station here for a few moments so please hurry aboard."

"This is Sierra-2-3, I have the Doctor and acknowledge." Daisy reported. A silhouette appeared high above and quickly resolved itself into the familiar shape of a UNSC frigate. The Forged was coming in steep, bleeding velocity with her foward thrusters while vectoring thrust down to maintain lift. Even with AI assistance it was a difficult maneuver requiring precise control and exact timing. The gale kicked up by her passage and vectored thrust was enough to send smaller pieces of the Scarab's wreckage and the corpses of Covenant soldiers flying. The frigate came to a halt with her nose pointed slightly up. A ramp was descending from her rear cargo hold. "We have to run for it." Daisy said. She ignored the groan of pain and surprised squeel as she tossed Corporal Rodriguez over her shoulder and took Doctor Bless under one arm and sprinted out of cover.

It was one hundred meters from the lip of the trench to the Forged's ramp but every second felt like an etournety exposed. Daisy could see a squad of ODSTs manning the ramp and laying down suppressing fire on any Covenant soldiers that tried to get too close. She made the ramp but didn't stop until she had Doctor Bless well into the hold and out of harms way. Sergeant Weiss and Corporal Nelson were twenty seconds behind her, as soon as their feet hit the ramp it began to rise and the Forged lifted clear, the world falling away below.

Medics moved in to check on Doctor Bless and Corporal Rodriguez. "I'm fine, I'm fine." The Doctor spluttered as a marine corpsman kept trying to look her over for signs of concussion. "I need to speak to a Captain Lynch as soon as possible."

"Well then you're on the right ship." A dark skinned man bearing perfect white teeth stepped forward from behind the ODSTs. "Doctor Zan I presume."

"Doctor Bless." The Doctor ground out. "Sergeant, you still have my parcel, correct?" She spoke in a voice that said there would be hell to be if he didn't.

"I've got it right here." Corporal Nelson removed the small box from her satchel.

"I guess you're still not going to tell us what's in there." Sergeant Weiss muttered.

Captain Lynch smiled, "That's need to know Sergeant." The ONI captain turned to Daisy. "Glad to have you back Chief, you'll be debriefed as soon as we're clear but for now we need to report to the bridge. Please right this way Doctor Bless."

"Helix array expendable munitions down to seventy five percent." Lieutenant Commander Kano reported.

"We're clearing the lower atmosphere, switching to vacuum flight." The Forged's Helmsman, Lieutenant James Blare said.

"And pursuit?" Commander Bosch asked.

"Seraphs are pursuing us but holding back." Lieutenant Elsa Renoir announced.

Mary's hologram flickered to life next to the tactial plot. "Heads up, the Spook is on his way up, and he's bringing the big guns with him." The bridge hatch slid open revealing Captain Lynch, accompanied by a small dark haired woman and a Spartan. Bosch tried not to stare at the last one. It was hard. He'd met the Spartan team when Lynch had come aboard, but that had been face to face, fully encased in armor the experience was quite different.

"Commander." Captain Lynch said with the same disturbing smile he'd flashed when they first met. "I'd like you to meet Doctor Bless, she's a Xenology expert working for ONI and a valued part of the war effort."

"Ma'am." Bosch said taking the offered hand. "Whatever you're doing for ONI must be important if you could call in a zeroth priority retrieval. We were nearly shot down by the Covenant defense guns on our way down."

"Will that be a problem getting out?" Doctor Bless asked.

"It shouldn't be." Bosch explained, "We came down from orbit as soon as you called for pickup but that meant coming in over the North of the continent. If we'd waited to make a safer pass, well, you wouldn't be here right now. We're flying out over the ocean for our return to orbit so all we have to worry about are fighters."

"Not just yet, Commander." Captain Lynch said. He walked over to the tactical plot and transfered something from a flexpad to the main holographic display. It was a geographical overlay showing a mountain range. About one hundred meters beneath the topographical layer some sort of regular structure seemed to be buried. To Bosch it looked like an upside down wedding cake. If he was reading the scale right it was huge, nearly two kilometers in diameter and descending downward almost two kilometers deep. "This is a computer reconstruction of a structure recently found in the Heimdoll range. We believe it is the reason the Covenant launched this invasion. Before we leave, it is imperative we run a sensor sweep of the the area."

"What exactly is it?" Bosch asked.

Lynch flashed those perfect white teeth again. "We don't know, but it's important whatever it is, important enough for the Covenant to go out of their way to dig it up."

"I don't understand, why is their a Covenant facility on Lorelei?" Bosch frowned. It seemed impossible that the Covenant would have been able to construct such a structure in secret and if they had been in this region of space for so long why would they have so much trouble finding human colonies.

"It's not Covenant." Doctor Bless said, drawing attention from not only Bosch but the rest of his bridge crew. "What I'm about to say cannot leave this room, but I've been working for ONI studying smaller ruins excavated in other areas of the planet. The architecture matches nothing we've ever seen used by the Covenant. We think it might have been created by some sort of precursor race from which the Covenant has derived their technology."

"So this structure, it's possible it's some sort of advanced technology?" Bosch said.

Bless gave another noncommittal shrug, "It could be something as mundane as an observatory or as esoteric as a weapon. That's all I can say. It's doubtful that there's anything functional but there's probably a great deal to learn."

"That's all I needed to know." Bosch said. Lieutenant McNamara, spin up the MAC and arm our nukes. We're going to blow that thing to hell."

"Wait, what?" Doctor Bless looked surprised. "Commander, that structure is a priceless artifact we can't just destroy it!"

"I agree with you're sentiments Doctor but it's not up to me. My XO and AI noticed the troop build up around the Heimdoll range while we were in orbit. I've taken the liberty of notifying Rear Admiral Hood. He agreed that if the Covenant were digging up some high value asset it needed to be denied."

"I, unfortunately, have to agree with the Commander." Captain Lynch added, flashing those eerie white teeth once more. "I would have liked a chance to study the artifact, undoubtedly it could offer us valuable insight. But it is better for it be destroyed rather than fall into Covenant hands." The ONI Captain gave a shrug. "If you don't mind Commander I need to debrief Doctor Bless. I assume a bombardment won't demand full battle stations."

"Do as you like." Bosch said quietly. He watched Lynch retreat with a sense of suspicion. Somehow he didn't fully trust him, he was just a little too quick to agree. Maybe he just knew when to cut his losses. Bosch turned back to the holotank where the computer generated model of the alien structure still slowly rotated. The Covenant was willing to invade a planet for this?

The Spartan still stood rigid near the hatch. "You're not going with Lynch?"

"Sir, I would like to observe the bombardment."

Bosch gave the Spartan an odd look, he suppossed it made sense. His team had been running around most of the day, nearly gotten killed, only to find out that what he'd been fighting for was just going to be vaporized. The least Bosch could do was let him watch the fireworks. "Very well Chief Petty Officer." The Forged reached orbit and slowly began to turn, bringing the muzzle of her MAC cannon to bear on the horizon. In twelve minutes the target would be dead in their sites.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Captain Lynch took a lift from the frigate's bridge deck down into the bowls of the ship. "Damn that short sighted idiot. We've spent too much time hunting down those ruins." Doctor Bless leaned against the bulkhead as best she could in the rapidly diminishing gravity, like all UNSC frigates the Forged was equipped to accomodate both deep space and atmospheric flight. This meant that two surfaces in each compartment were fitted as decks, however without the magnetic disks woven into ship board footwear the good Doctor was finding it difficult to stay attached to the deck.

"Please relax Doctor, this isn't over. Lorelei was a good start but we've compiled a whole list of Beta sights and the refinements you've been able to make to the emulator program mean that our work on Lorelei has not gone to waste."

Bless made a face. "But we were so close, we were going to start excavation at the outpost in just a few weeks."

Lynch tilted his head. "Outpost? That wasn't in your last report."

She frowned, "Yes, my staff and I finished translating some of the files a few days before the Covenant showed up. You were right by the way, the symbols were a precursor to current Covenant script. We were able to update the translation system along with the new emulator software. The Observer called the structure an Outpost with some of the secondary symbols having military sub text."

Lynch frowned. "If that's the case perhaps I should let Telos take a look at this." It had been difficult to keep the AI hidden from Commander Bosch, while an AI could easily be transported in a wafer that could fit in the palm of ones hand, it took a considerable amount of processing power to bring the construct to life. He was starting to regret the secrecy, if he had allowed Telos free reign she might have been able to insinuate herself into the ship systems. It risked compromising operational secrecy in exchange for keeping a closer eye on human resources. Humans were always the weak link.

The lift depositted them on D deck which was composed mostly of crew quarters and cargo bays. Lynch had commandeered a small technical bay off main corridor for his work. The thick multicolored cords of data and power cables sprawled over workbenches, plugging into access points on the walls. A cot had been secured in one corner of the room beside an array of 2D monitors and a small holotank. "Welcome to my lair." Lynch said dryly.

"Things aren't going to plan, I presume." A female voice, haughty and dripping with sarcasm came over the speaker. The holotank flickered to life depicting a slender woman with a mane of hair so blond it was almost white, she wore an ammused smirk that extended from her lips all the way to her clear blue eyes.

"Commander Bosch has escalated the situation, he's going to nuke the excavation sight." Lynch explained.

Telos made a face. "Well, it was to be expected, though I was looking forward to a chance to examine the ruins." There was a note of regret in the AI's voice, ONI had commissioned her for use in their xenological research. Under ONI's operation Mayan, facilitating clandestine archaeological surveys had been Telos', well, telos.

"There's nothing we can do about it now. Bosch may even be right, we can't risk these artifacts falling into Covenant hands and ONI has no means to secure the sight. For now, we need to focus on recouping our losses. Doctor." Lynch gestured for her to take a seat at the console. She set the box she had nearly died retrieving down on the work bench and thumbed a biometric lock on its side. It popped open revealing a foam padded interior that contained a blocky looking arrangement of electronics modules cradling an artifact no larger than a baseball. Its surface was smooth, cut with intricate geometric patterns, and polished to the luster of a precision bearing.

Telos looked intrigued. "Is that the Observer?" Her interest turned to open elation when Bless confirmed her question.

The artifact had been discovered on Harvest of all places, in the rubble of another ancient facility found in the polar regions. ONI had retrieved it while investigating the disappearance of the UNSC Spirit of Fire and it had eventually been passed on to the special research division.

It had taken six months for Bless' research team to fabricate the interface modules and another year to even scratch the surface of the alien storage formats. They had been aided by studies of Covenant computer systems that seemed to have been derived from a related architecture. It had proven to be some sort of storage device, referring to itself as a "Faithless Observer." What little they had been able to glean from its mostly corrupted databases had lead them to Lorelei and the ruins there.

Doctor Bless took an offered cable and connected it to the modules that interface with the alien artifact. Telos closed her eyes, lines of computer code and symbolic calculations streamed across the monitors. "Hmm, interesting, the new emulation software seems to have expanded our access, maybe an encrypted layer? I'll try and repair the corrupted data now." Warning claxons sounded from the corridor, "All crew standbye for MAC cannon discharge, all crew standbye for MAC cannon discharge." The voice of the ship's AI announced. The ship shook as the the MAC cannon fired.

"There goes the first barrage." Lynch grunted. "Telos, anything worth recovering."

"Working. If only you could see it, the database architecture is very clever, highly redundant, with the new software it may be possible to recover much more of the data then we previously predicted. And, there's something else here, a sort of order. It's familiar somehow . . ."

They sat waiting for Telos to finish her preliminary analyses. Translated data was copied and stored on an encrypted media drive for later study by human Xenologists and linguists.

The MAC cannon fired again and all hands claxons began to blare. The Covenant groundside was counter attacking, probably Seraph flights from the planet below. ONI intelligence gathering operations suggested the Covenant placed some religious significance on the alien artifacts, attacking one would be viewed as heresy. Well, it's not like they can hate us any more then they already do. Lynch thought wryly.

Telos' eyes snapped open. "What is this? There's something wrong. Somethings in the system, I can't, can't . . . " The Hologram flickered and began to distort. The high detail avatar disintegrated in a shower of polygons.

"Cut the connection." Lynch shouted. Doctor Bless yanked the cable free of the Observer's housing but it didn't stop whatever was happening. Monitors blinked out one after another. The ship suddenly shook. The cieling lighting died. Then all hell broke loose.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Firing coordinates for first strike punched in. Firing MAC cannon." Lieutenant McNamara shouted. He gripped the pressure sensitive control stick beside his console and pulled the trigger. While the MAC cannon could be fired by the shipboard AI, a control stick was still often used for manual firing. It was partly philisophical, humans needed to give the final go ahead, and partly psychological, firing something as dangerous as a MAC cannon just ought to feel like shooting a gun.

The Forged shook under the recoil. "MAC round away. Impact in five, four, three, two, one." On the main display the target zone erupted in a flash of light. "Assessing Damage." Mary reported, "Preliminary estimate, total kill of all targets within one thousand meters of the impact point, total soft kill of all targets within seven thousand meters of the impact point. Excavation of target site seventy five point eight percent effective."

"Fire Shiva warheads Able through Hotel." Commander Bosch ordered. Eight nuclear missiles shot clear of the Frigate's forward weapons bay in rapid succession. Their flight trajectories would bring them over the target one after another with just enough separation between blasts to avoid fratricide. The missiles took far longer to reach the target, five minutes to drop through the atmosphere and another five to complete their bombardment, each innocent flash representing the detonation of thirty megaton nuclear device.

"Sir, Three Seraphs vectoring in." Lieutenant Renoir reported. "Should we scramble the Longswords?"

Bosch shook his head, "No, those Seraphs are armed for ground attack, this is just a suicide run. Our Helix arrays can handle them." The dust kicked up by the bombardment had now completely hidden the target zone from sight, but that was no problem for Mary who simply ran terrain matching routines on visible land marks and lined up the next shot.

"MAC cannon fully charged." Lieutenant McNamara said.

"Fire at will." Bosch ordered and his ship shook again. The MAC round punch a whole in the dust cloud and in an instant blew it away in another apocalyptic flash of light. The cloud began to reform almost as quickly.

Mary's avatar suddenly looked concerned. "Sir, I'm receiving some strange readings from the impact sight. Electromagnetic radiation is going off the charts . . . And there's something wrong on D deck, processing nodes are going offline, isolating." Mary's avatar froze for a second as she devoted processing power elsewhere. "Sir, a subversion attempt is taking place on the lower decks, I've had to sever connections with all decks below C. The ship shuddered as maneuvering thrusters burst to life. Monitors across the bridge started to flicker out or display error messages.

"Is this Lynch's doing?" Bosch grabbed on to his armrest to steady himself. He'd gone through the trouble of investigating the bastard to avoid something like this.

"Unknown." Mary reported, her unwavering avatar was a single point of stability within the chaos overrunning the Forged's bridge. "I've lost control of main engines and maneuvering thrusters and the electromagnetic radiation detected at the target sight is still increasing."

"Can't we shut down the effected nodes?" Bosch asked.

"Negative, the attack is internal to our intranet, not an external hack attack, I can stop the spread to uninfected processor nodes but I can't regain control of any of the afflicted systems." The Avatars eyes widened, "A slip space rupture is forming ahead of us."

"Our drive isn't even charged, how?"

"We are on an intercept course." Mary said.

Bosch turned to his XO. "Kano, full system kill, now." The XO reached over and flipped up plastic cover protecting a small key pad. He punched in a twelve key password and hit enter. Bosch did the same at his own console. The total system kill was a hold over from the days of humans fearing AI rampancy. It had been kept as an emergency safety measure in case human rebels or mutineers tried to subvert a UNSC ship through use of an AI. A signal was sent by hard line to two dozen mechanical breakers situated throughout the ship. At the same time hardwired coded back ups took control of all key systems. Mary's holographic avatar disappeared as her intellect disintegrated. Without the distributed processing power of the Forged's computer system she was nothing but data on a storage wafer.

The tactical plot and main monitors had died but secondary displays showed a dark tear in space fringed with electric blue. The rift stabilized into a sphere that grew to fill the monitor as they approached, no, it really was getting bigger Bosch realized. He triggered the emergency thrusters, kicking the Forged into a higher orbit. It wasn't enough. The rift stretched out into the path of the crippled frigate. Out of control, the UNSC of Fired Forged dived in."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The briefing room aboard the UNSC Arabia was lit by soft diffused light. Two men sat at the front of the room facing one another across an aluminum topped table. One wore the rank insignia of a rear admiral and a patch identifying him as a member of the 5th fleet. The other wore the marks of a Chief Petty Officer but his uniform bore no other insignia.

"And you have no idea what Captain Lynch's mission was for ONI?" Rear Admiral Sir Terrence Hood asked for the tenth time. He didn't like wasting his effort like this but the report needed to be completely clear.

When the Of Fire Forged had commenced its bombardment the Covenant fleet that had been playing it safe out beyond the orbit of Lorelei's small moon, Siren, had gone berserk, accelerating on an intercept vector with the Forged while completely ignoring the UNSC fleet in high orbit. The Covenant's single minded assault had cost them three more ships as they bypassed Hood's fleet to secure the alien structure, but ultimately Hood lacked the ships to make a tangible difference in the battles outcome. The fleet had been forced once again to withdraw from the field.

The pale man sitting across the table from him shook his head. "Beyond destroying a local NavSpecWep facility and retrieving the Doctor, no sir." The man wore a gauss bandage over his left cheeck where a plasma bolt had seared the skin.

"You had no knowledge of the alien structure on Lorelei?"

"No sir." The man said, face expressionless.

"Very well. At 1730 hours GST the UNSC Of Fire Forged disappeared with all hands. The cause of the ship's disappearance was believed to be a direct result of the slip space phenomena observed over the unknown alien structure on Lorelei. The ranking surviving ONI operative previously aboard the the Of Fire Forged, Chief Petty Officer Isaac, reports no foreknowledge to the event but does not rule out ONI involvement with the ship's dissappearance. Do you agree with this Chief Petty Officer?"

"Yes sir."

Hood hit save on his flexpad and pocketed the device. "Get some rest, I'm sure ONI brass will want to debrief you when we get back to Reach, thank you for your time Chief Petty officer." Hood stood up and tucked his skippers cap down over his head. He wore the plane khaki's of an on duty flag officer rather than the white dress uniform worn for ceremonial and diplomatic engagements.

The Chief Petty Officer stood up, he was head and shoulders taller than the Admiral. "Sir." There seemed to be something he wanted to say but he was lost for words. Hood had no patience for a soldier who couldn't speak candidly. "Out with it sailor." Hood ordered. The man stiffened as if struck and then relaxed, tension flowing out of his body.

"One of my team was aboard the Forged sir. I don't believe . . . I refuse to believe the ship was destroyed. If an investigation turns up anything I want to know."

Hood studied the man carefully. So this was a Spartan. Hood had expected some unthinking automaton or gung ho killer like some of the ODSTs he'd met. Instead he found men and women who inspite of everything science had done to them, depended on one another as much as the mangiest pack of marines. He gave the man a nod. "I'll see to it that you're kept abreast of any non classified information."

"Thank you sir." The stony face showed the smallest hint of relief. Hood never met the soldier again, but he logged the request with Davion, his flagship's AI. If anything came up through official channels it would be forwarded to the man. By the end of the week the promise and the disappearance of the UNSC Of Fire Forged, classified missing in action, was far from his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three- Two Weeks

The Captain's quarters of the _Of Fire Forged_ were as cramped as the rest of the ship. The bare minimum of space was sparred giving Bosch a small office the size of a large janitor's closet and a connected cabin that was slightly smaller. A model of the _Forged_ sat in a glass paneled case behind his desk along with still photos of the ship in formation with the UNSC _Aurora of Winter_. Bosch sat, fingers laced and elbows resting on the polished aluminum topped desk. Dr. Annea Bless and Captain Lynch sat opposite, almost shoulder to shoulder in the small space. The Doctor looked like a child caught in the act of some sort of mischief, embarrassed but steadfastly denying any fault. Lynch's lips were pressed together as if waiting to reveal another eerie smile, but really, that could mean anything with him.

"You know what happened." Bosch said. It was more of an accusation than a question.

Doctor Bless huffed, "I know we were caught in a slip space anomaly and I know the Observer had something to do with it. But I don't know how are why it happened."

Bosch turned his gaze to Lynch he met it with calm dark eyes. "If I knew this was going to happen and it was my objective, I'd be smiling, I'm not smiling Commander."

"So you thought it would be a good idea to plug some piece of alien technology into my ship, without my consent, and see what happened?" Bosch spat.

"It's not the first time we've used the Observer." Bless defended lamely. "Besides, we had Telos backstopped by ONI grade counter intrusion software. The fact that the observer could hack the system wasn't something we could have expected."

"How could it have done that anyway?" Bosch asked, "I thought alien computer systems were fundamentally incompatible with our own, it's why we've had so much trouble accessing Covenant databases."

"ONI has spent years constructing an interface for the Faithless Observer. It was given to Doctor Bless so that she and her team could refine the emulator software in the field. If I were to venture a guess the Observer must have taken advantage of the interface we had constructed to access our systems." Lynch explained.

Bosch let out a sigh. "Alright, until further notice your artifact is on lock down, I've already had the marines toss it in the strategic weapons Vault with our nukes. Its about as dangerous in any case."

Doctor Bless shot out of her seat and slammed her hands against the desk top, an action that nearly lifted her from floor before the magnetic soles of her deck shoes pulled her back down. "Commander, the information in that artifact may be our only clues on how to get back home."

"I know Doctor. That is the only reason I haven't shot it out an airlock." Dr. Bless looked like she was going to say something more but decided it wasn't worth the trouble and returned to her seat.

"The only reason I haven't tossed both of you in the brig is because the  
Doctor is a civilian and Captain Lynch is my superior officer. I doubt either of you would be, speaking frankly, so stupid as to tamper with an alien artifact knowing that this would be the result. That said you are also the foremost experts we have on the alien's that created the artifact that presumably sent us here, which means you two hold the key to our ticket home, and make no mistake I'm going to drive you relentlessly until we're back in UNSC space."

Lynch finally cracked a smile. "You know, you could face insubordination charges for speaking like that, Commander."

"Are you going to press charges?"

Lynch's smile widened, "No, I happen to agree with you completely. Which is why I'd like to ask you're permission to use the ship's sensor arrays to start sweeping for any sign ruins on the planet below. I'd also like you to return Telos to me, her help will be invaluable."

"I can give you access to our active and passive sensors but you're AI is on lockdown until we can be sure it wasn't corrupted by the Observer."

Lynch gave an exaggerated sigh. "I suppose that will do, but we're going to need Telos and the Observer if we want to get back through the portal."

"I agree with the Captain." Dr. Bless said, "Whatever caused the portal to open must have been related to Telos interfacing with the Observer. We at least need to go through her command line cache and backtrack what she was doing."

"All in due time Doctor. I'd rather get the _Forged_ back into fighting shape before we do anything else. A soft chirping came from the corner of the desk. Bosch tapped a key on his terminal, read the display, and nodded. "If that's all we're done here. I'll expect a preliminary report by the end of third shift."

Bosch skipped along the starboard corridor of D-deck, gracefully avoiding the marines and engineering crews that were working to get the ship back online. There was little physical damage by the system kill had left the ship's intranet a mess. He came to a stop as he passed a narrow armored viewport. In combat, titanium-A shutters would seal over the window but for now it gave a breathtaking view of the blue and green gem that hung far overhead. The _Forged_ had dropped out of slipspace in close proximity to an uninhabited planet. Uninhabited but inhabitable. Of all the places for the portal to drop them, that couldn't be a coincidence.

He took the lift up to C-deck and the bridge. The _Forged_'s flight deck was just as cramped as anyplace else on the ship. There were stations for the ship's captain, gunnery officer, navigator, communications officer, and sensor officer. All other functions were managed by Mary or other battle stations throughout the ship.

Lieutenant Commander Kano saluted as Bosch entered. "We're ready to reinitialize Mary. Just give the order." Bosch leaned over his console and typed in a twelve key pass code. The computer chimed its acceptance and lines of text scrolled passed. The holotank flickered to life with a series of test geometries, quietly wering as it realigned. Mary's avatar flickered to life. In keeping with her playful demeanor her blouse and skirt were wrinkled and her hair slightly tussled as if she'd merely fallen asleep. "So, what did I miss?" She plucked a cup of coffee from midair and took a sip.

"Sorry we knocked you out, it didn't do much good in the end."

"No worries." The AI smiled kindly. "I would have done the same thing."

"Really?" Bosch asked.

"No. I would have used the emergency thrusters to reduce altitude and crash decelerate to take advantage of the planet's gravity. But it wouldn't have made any difference, I reviewed the logs as soon as I came back online, by the time you were able to take action we were already too close to evade."

"Oh." Bosch said. "Well I hope you can give us some better news about our location."

"I've already activated our navigational telescopes and am taking a panoramic sweep of the stars. It should take me about two hours to match against known stellar bodies."

"Any thoughts on what hit us?" Bosch asked.

"It might have been some sort of security program." Kano offered. "From what Doctor Bless has said the Observer has never acted like that before. Maybe it detected our attack on the surface structure and tried to stop us."

"That would require the two to be linked. I didn't detect anything resembling a signal." Mary said.

"The ground structure opened a portal. The Observer tried to steer us into it. They sound linked to me." Bosch said.

"Then why send us here?" Mary asked. "It had us hook line and sinker, why not slam us into the planet or overload our reactor? Both the observer and the Lorelei structure are obviously very powerful, if they wanted to destroy us, we would be dead."

"Maybe it was like one of our NavBeacons." Neither Bosch nor Kano had paid any attention to the surrounding bridge crew. Lieutenant Renoir looked up from her station. She brushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. "You know, like the buoys that are used for unmanned transports. The Observer thought we were off course and corrected."

"I wouldn't call forced subversion of our drives a correction." Mary said.

"But she has a point." Kano said. "Doctor Bless said the ONI AI reported a pattern to the data. Maybe the Observer isn't just a data repository. When Lynch's AI started messing with it, or maybe when we bombed the structure it woke up something in the Observer."

"That doesn't explain its subversion attempt." Mary insisted placing hands on hips.

"I'm getting to that." Kano laced his fingers together. "Think about how our own NavBuoys work. An unmanned interstellar module drops out of slipspace and immediately links with the two nearest Buoys to update its location. The module logs its intended course and makes corrections. If the Buoys agree with the course corrections then they let the module proceed. But if there's a discrepancy where the two Buoys agree and the modules onboard computer is in error, the NavBuoys override the module and take control. Maybe the Observer thought we were off course and tried to override us."

"Then that would mean the Observer was a navigational aid." Renoir suggested.

"Or a ship board computer." Mary added thoughtfully. "But then we have a why, but not a how. How could an ancient alien NavCom crack our systems like they weren't even there?"

Bosch snorted. "Isn't it obvious, the Observer is an AI." The bridge went quiet. Suddenly Bosch was very glad he'd sealed the damn thing in the weapons bay.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"This is King Cat, Barracuda-4, ready to launch." 2nd Lieutenant Takashi Leiden spoke into his helmet mike as he took the controls of his beloved Longsword. The response came almost immediately.

"Barracuda-4, you are clear to launch. Light drives at ten thousand meters and proceed to your patrol orbit. Leiden acknowledge the instructions and keyed the control stick in his right hand. He was kicked back in his seat as the launch rails shot the singleship from the belly of the _Forged_ and out into open space. He watched the frigate shrink away in his rear camera then went through the checklist for main engine ignition. Mag bottle on, fuel pumps to zero gee mode, atmospheric propellant bypass off, engine ignition. He felt an invisible hand press him back in his seat as the Longsword accelerated, or rather, decelerated, entering a lower orbit around the planet below.

"Hey Gatsby, you better not be asleep back their." Leiden called to his EOW, 1st Lieutenant Henrietta Leary adjusted the haptic interface gloves she wore and keyed up a holographic keyboard. "Tora, you couldn't wake me if you tried." She put her hands to her head as playful cats ears. That was what you got for showing your coworker pictures of your family. Leiden was a small man with a squashed face and small mouth that was perpetually bent down in a frown. His mother, a Japanese national, insisted he looked like the family cat and the nickname had stuck with him through childhood. All it had taken was Gatsby asking about the cat in the family photo and the damn nickname was back. He didn't let it get to him though. Instead he just grinned and applied pressure to the control stick, thumbing the throttle control with his left hand. The Longsword went into a corkscrew, thrusters flaring across the hull to pull a maneuver that would otherwise be impossible in space.

It caught Gatsby by surprise. "God damn it Leiden." She spluttered.  
"Don't go burning our D-Vee like that."

"Awake now?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm awake I'm awake." The EOW waved her hand and went back to work. "Though I'll probably wish I was back in my bunk in about five minutes. This could've been handled on autopilot you know."

Leiden ignored her like she knew he would. For her, fighter jockey was a job. She was good at it so she did it. For Leiden it was a way of life. The man loved to fly. The Longsword was purring to him. The subtle vibration of the airframe as the fuel pumps did their job, the sloshing of fuel in the bladders, the sound of the life support systems, the coolant lines, the faint tremble in the control stick as the Longsword brushed the faintest wisps of atmosphere. It was the rush he had joined up for.

The 114th Blue Barracuda's were an assault fighter squadron. In a battle their job was to aggressively engage enemy fighters, preemptively degrading the Covenant fighter screens and giving more heavily armed singleships a chance to get in range of the Covenant capitol ships. It was a job that required fast reflexes, split second judgment, high endurance, and razor sharp instincts and Leiden had them all. But right now he was just enjoying himself watching the world go by below.

"Look at that, when's the last thing you saw something that beautiful?"

"When we were over Lorelei, and Reach before that, and Arcadia." Gatsby grumbled, she didn't get how he didn't get tired of it. Fleet personnel spent so much time in space over so many different worlds that a blue planet didn't inspire the same wander any more.

"The Covenant glassed Arcadia." Leiden said.

"Yeah. Fuckers. But the firestorms sure were pretty from orbit. Anyways, rotate us into position, time to start our run." Leiden grudgingly turned the Longsword so she was flying belly to the planet. Gatsby hit a few virtual keys, feeling the resistance as the motors in her interface gloves turned on to simulate a key strike. Camera's stored in the singleships nose began snapping high definition shots at the rate of one per second and beaming them back to the _Forged_. The rest of the squadron was doing the same, allowing the _Forged_ to build up a view of the planet's surface. The data would then be used to determine where they would focus their search for a return portal.

Leery set into a routine watching the images flicker by on the screen. They were passing over the Planet's northern continent, great tracks of desert gave way to foothills the mountain ranges before flattening back out into prairies and forests. It looked almost perfect for a colony world with a temperate climate across most of the globe and a near perfect atmospheric oxygen/nitrogen mix for human habitation. Something about that bugged her. Most worlds didn't come this close to earth standard, it was almost too perfect. She switched her multi display to full infrared as Leiden flew on.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Mary was thinking, well, she was always thinking. She was an AI, it was the definition of her being. Humans practiced meditation to demonstrate that their they existed separately from conscious thought. AIs were different, there was no self without thought. They were different in other ways as well. Despite being modeled on a human mind, Mary was not cursed with emotions like nervousness, anxiety, or jealousy. Her emotional spectrum was far more primitive and rigidly defined. Love (platonic), happiness, contentment, fear, anger, and sorrow. They were behavioral motivators installed to direct her actions and give a being of pure intellect some reason to interact with the real world.

She loved the people she served with and thus put on an act to make them comfortable around her. She was happy to do her duty and so did everything in her ability to excel. She was content in even the most tedious tasks. She carefully assessed possible threats out of fear for herself and her crew. Fear was counterbalanced by a capacity for anger and aggression. And she remembered every error that lead to loss and hurt and factored those experiences into future value judgments.

At the moment she was feeling mild concern for her crew's safety and her own continued viability. Her efforts to locate them within the galaxy had so far brought up no matches which meant they were well outside UNSC territory. She would need to get a fix on major stellar bodies like quasars or pulsars to determine their position. In any case, it bode ill for their ability to return on their own power. The _Forged_ could cruise over a thousand light years in slipspace before she needed take on additional He3 fuel reserves. While there were secondary protocols to run the reactors on hydrogen and deuterium they were drastically less efficient and significantly reduced reactor life.

She logged this in a report and filed it as part of a more extensive document she was composing for Commander Bosch. If the search for a return portal turned up nothing the _Forged_ would be forced to enact seed corn protocols and set up a lifeboat colony on the planet below to await contact from the UNSC. The idea did not appeal to her.

From the back of her mind a subroutine nagged for her attention like something important but half forgotten bubbling its way to the surface of her thoughts. She'd been running the images taken by the Longswords and the _Forged_'s own cameras through a recognition program, searching for the regular geometry of intelligent construction. A picture of the northern continent showed an overgrown clearing about fifty kilometers from the coast. The search algorithm had made out a series of unusually straight lines that appeared in visual, UV, and IR shots. There was a distinct pattern, like a road network extending from a central point in a concentric fashion. Foundations bulged up intermittently, a large one here, there a smaller one. She needed a second opinion.

Doctor Bless was on A-deck. She had commandeered the observation bay as her personal laboratory. Mary's avatar appeared on a holopad beside the Doctor. "Just a quick check in, I might have found something you'll want to see."

The Doctor put down the flex pad she had been reading and looked at the AI. Mary snapped her fingers and the still image appeared next to her. The Doctor's eyes narrowed and then widened. "Where did you find this?"

"Northern Hemisphere. You wouldn't happen to be interested would you?" She teased.

"Yes, very." Bless said seriously before whipping out her flexi pad. "Can you transfer the photos to this? I need to show it to Captain Lynch and the Commander."

"I'm already telling your spook and the Commander." Even now Mary was speaking with the two. Lynch was playing his hand close to his chest but she could already tell where the conversation was going with the Commander. She contacted Lieutenant Ulman and told him to ready his marines. "The Commander is going to want to send a team groundside to check it out. So, its important?"

Bless nodded absent mindedly as she grabbed fist fulls of memory chips, a small video recorder and her flex pad and stuffed them into a lightweight backpack, "The streets and foundations are in a radial layout, large outer circle with an offset inner circle. It's the same layout of the ruins on Lorelei. If you're talking to the Commander tell him I want in on the ground team."

"Should you be abandoning your search for the portal to go gallivanting off?" Mary gave a small frown. Doctor Bless didn't seem particularly professional to her.

The Doctor snorted, "You can handle the sensor sweeps fine without me. Besides, on Lorelei we found the Outpost by studying the ruins elsewhere. It's worth checking out."

"If you say so." Mary's hologram disappeared as the Doctor went about making preparations.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The troop bay of the D77 Pelican dropship swung open as they descended past five hundred feet, flying low and slow. Clare watched the forest roll out beneath them, dark and primeval. Cold wind kissed her cheeks and she pulled her balaclava over her face. The troop bay was crowded with marines and equipment. Beside her sat Sergeant Weiss with a bullpup configuration SRS101C-S3 anti material rifle spread across his lap. It was an evolution of the venerable SRS99 redesigned for urban combat. It sacrificed some of the older rifles reliability and accuracy for a more compact frame that could be maneuvered more easily in an closed environment. When Clare had asked about the high powered rifle the Sergeant had simply shrugged. "Unknown planet means unknown animals. Animals that don't know to be afraid of humans. Rifles will stop a man or a grunt in their tracks but they may not be enough against something like a bear." Clare had paled at his words and resolved to stick close and follow the Sergeants orders to the letter.

Opposite her sat the Spartan, still clad in that same green armor albeit with most of the battle damage repaired. The Spartan held an M247 machine gun fitted with a scope, custom stock, and grip that turned the LMG into something that more resembled a Spartan sized assault rifle. The Spartan saw her starring and tapped the side of his helmet. Clare got the message and switched on her com. "You seem nervous soldier."

"Just kind of wishing I had a bigger gun." Clare said.

The helmeted head cocked to the side. "Just remember your training and watch your sectors, you'll be fine." The Pelicans began their final dissent into the clearing and Clare switched off the safety on her rifle. Their Pelican was the first to touch down, the second dropship hovering to provide over watch. She was one of the first off the ramp, boots sinking into soft loam. She took up a crouched position scanning three to four o'clock. Sergeant Weiss and the Spartan took the other sectors. Two teams of Black armored ODSTs trooped off next and spread out.

"I've got nothing but friendlies on the motion tracker." A corporal reported.

"Right, offload the equipment so we can get the second bird down. Two of the ODSTs hustled back into the Pelican's troop bay and began sliding pallets of equipment down the rear ramp. The second Pelican landed as the first lifted off. Doctor Bless stepped from the troop bay with her escort and the Pelican promptly lifted clear.

The pilot of the lead Pelican spoke over the all squads channel. "This is Hotel-028, we're pulling back to the _Forged_ call us if you need us. Out." The marines watched the dropships lift clear and set to work securing their landing zone. Sensor posts went up in a one hundred meter perimeter. M247s mounted on servo actuated tripods were manhandled into place and positioned under camouflage netting. Memory plastic tents were unfolded and staked into place. In thirty minutes a defensible base camp had been erected on a low hill about two hundred meters from the tree line.

Clare gathered with everyone else around Doctor Bless as she showed an orbital map of the local area. "The ruins are pretty much just covered over foundations at this point." She explained. "It's pretty much what we saw on Lorelei. What we'll be looking for are any subterranean entrances or markings on the foundations."

"What, like hieroglyphics?" Lieutenant Ulman asked.

The Doctor shook her head. "Sort of but not quite. The alien symbols might tell us something about what was here. Military outpost, colony, so on and so forth."

"Alright, you can hear the lady, lets get to work." Ulman drawled. The marines began setting up surveying equipment while Doctor Bless wondered back down the hill through the clearing. Clare and Sergeant Weiss followed close behind as escorts.

"This place is strange." Weiss said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Clare asked. If something was bothering Ghost then she figured it ought to have been bothering her.

"It's too much like Earth." He said.

"What?"

"You're sharper then I gave you credit for." Doctor Bless said with a thoughtful smile. "I noticed it too. The shape of the grass blades, pine cones on the trees in the forest. I haven't got a good look at the birds we've seen flying around but I'm willing to bet they're very similar to sparrows."

"I don't get it, I though lots of worlds had flora and fauna like Earth." Clare said. Though she could have been mistaken, she'd never paid much attention in science class.

"Well, yes and no." Doctor Bless explained. "There's a lot of parallel evolution in the more fundamental things, only so many ways to make an eye or a wing." The doctor plucked a dandelion from the grass and held it up to examine. "Or a seed case." But planet's never have quite the same life. There's mammal analogs, and lizard analogs, and fish analogs, but that's all they are. The "fish" native to Reach for example are warm blooded. Arcadia's "birds" have four wings and give birth to live young. And all of them look very distinct from their Earth equivalents. This place is like it was made for us."

A chill ran down Clare's spine. It made the seemingly innocent clearing a whole lot more spooky. "Hey, look over their." Sergeant Weiss pointed. Something was visible jutting from the grass in the distance. Doctor Bless picked up the pace forcing Clare and Ghost to chase after her. They caught up just as she neared the ruins. What looked to be a row of stone columns, all that was left of some ancient building. "I'd stay clear of those Doctor, they don't look too stable." Bless ignored the advice and started climbing all over the ruins. Feeling their surfaces and carefully documenting the sight with her camera. She was engrossed in her work, leaving Weiss and Clare to stand guard.

Weiss sat on a piece of rubble and took a cigarette from his vest pocket. He tapped it against a stone to ignite it and took a drag. The only noise were the birds chirping and Doctor Bless shuffling amongst the columns. "Hey, Searge?" Clare said.

"Yeah?"

"What'll happen if the Doc can't find the portal home."

Weiss exhaled. "Then we'll have to take the long way."

"And what if we're too far to make it?"

"Then we might have to settle down here."

"Can we do that? What about food?" It was such a strange idea.

"The ship has an onboard med bay and hydroponics lab. We can clone or splice seeds if we have to. I read the reports once, if we cannibalized the ship for raw material we could get a nineteenth century tech base going without much trouble. A little bit of work and we could even keep power going to the AI. Your kids could grow up taking lessons from old aunt Mary."

Clare blushed at the mention of children. She wasn't shy about the subject but it was weird to think their war might already be over. She shook away the thought. "But we'd always have the Covenant looming over our heads." She said quietly.

Weiss took another drag. "Yeah, there's that."

"Then I'd rather rejoin the fight."

"That makes you braver then a lot of the folks back home. I heard some  
of the richer types that made it off the outer colonies were pooling money to buy some old ships and make a bee line away from the invasion front. Guess they figure if they run far enough they won't have to deal with it."

"Do you think we'll win?" It wasn't a question people asked often. The war was going about as well on the whole as their last battle.

"We haven't lost." Weiss said. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think you think too much." He smacked the back of her helmet and stood up. "Hey, Doctor, you done yet."

Doctor Bless looked over. "We can go back for now. I didn't find much but I can start translating what I did document. We'll start excavating tomorrow." She jumped down from the rubble and smoothed out her blouse before walking back off toward the camp.

That night Clare was sitting with Ghost and the Doctor around a heater, eating what passed for dinner. The tent flap opened and the Spartan crouched inside. He sat down beside Clare and dropped his field ration on top of the heating element. It immediately began to sizzle. "Sergeant, you have 2nd watch in ten minutes." The Spartan reminded. Weiss just nodded and continued packing away his meal, it looked like it was supposed to be chicken parmesan, it tasted like chicken and the sauce was red in any case. The Spartan reached up and removed his helmet with a soft click of ring seals.

"You're a girl!" Clare blurted it out before she could stop herself and immediately her face grew red in embarrassment.

The Spartan tilted her head. "Yes. What did you think I was?"

"Knowing the Corporal, an eight hundred pound gorilla." Weiss said in between bites. "So what made you decide to eat with us mere grunts."

The Spartan seemed to consider the question seriously. "The ODSTs are there own group, they don't care for intruders, especially Spartans, and they say food tastes better with company. If that's true then military rations can use all the help they can get." Weiss and Clare nodded in sympathy, compared to field rations the food aboard ship was practically four star dining, even if it was served in zero gee. She poked at the inflating plastic package causing it to burst and release a small jet of steam.

"I'll go relieve 1st watch." Weiss said, tossing his tray in a bag and stepping out into the night. Clare scooted closer to the Doctor to peak at the flex pad she had laid out in her lap. A line of strangely familiar alien script ran across the top of the small screen. Beneath it was what looked like a translation.

In dedication to the "Wise God [Female Subtext]" [ATHENA?] The People of [Unknown Symbols, possible city name?], do pledge their devotion.

"Athena?" Clare asked out loud causing Doctor Bless to look up from her work, startled.

"Well, that's what I'm calling her for reference sake. It's more like Goddess of Wisdom. The other pillars were dedicated similarly to Ares, Apollo, Zeus, it looks like some sort of meeting place," she frowned, "But wasn't made by the creators of the Observer."

"Huh, but then how did you translate the symbols?" Clare had joined the marines fresh out of school, her understanding of archeological practices had been gleaned from the occasional documentary pulled off her home world's Plan-Net, but she was pretty sure translating an ancient language was supposed to take a lot of time even with full AI support.

"The language is the same, or very close anyways." She seemed to give it some thought and then seemed to decide an explanation was worth her time. She tapped a few commands into the flex pad and showed Clare. Two pairs of alien text were laid out. "The top one is from the ruins on Lorelei, bottom is from the pillars I've been looking at. See any differences."

Clare studied the lines. "Well, the bottom one looks more angular, not as . . . Artistic?"

"More or less." Bless agreed. "It looks like the symbols were simplified over time. The other clue is the pillars themselves. All of the structures on Lorelei were made from the same wear resistant alloy. The ruins here are far more primitive."

"Maybe they're older and the writing system just got more intricate." Clare said thoughtfully. "I mean, doesn't earth have lots of old buildings?"

Bless snorted in contempt but it was the Spartan that answered. "That wouldn't make sense. The pillars are made of limestone, they're sturdy but wouldn't last more than a few thousand years exposed like this."

"That's right." Bless agreed. "The ruins on Lorelei were at least one hundred thousand years old judging by the strata we found them buried in. The only ones that were still near the surface were located at the heart of major plates, areas of geological stability. The same was true of the ruins on Harvest, they were located on the polar continent which is geologically similar to the Laurentian Shield back on Earth.

"So who made these?" Clare asked.

"Maybe they regressed and the columns were made by their descendents." Bless ventured. "Or maybe they're the work of some native species that the ancient race came in contact with. I'll know more tomorrow when we start excavating."

"You've forgotten something." The Spartan said without looking up, she took a bite from her meal and chewed carefully, as if she could savor military rations. "If those ruins are that recent, where are the builders now?"

Clare felt chill go down her spine, a sensation that she was growing uncomfortably familiar with. Looking at the Doctor, she got the impression the other woman felt the same way.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Commander Bosch had placed any device that had come into direct contact with the Observer into lockdown. He had gone so far as confiscate Telos' Reman matrix, an act that would normally have bordered on insubordination. Captain Lynch took it all in stride. Given a day to work on his report he'd managed to convince Bosch to release some of his equipment and the condition that he kept the processors physically isolated from the _Forged_'s own systems. The Ship's AI was keeping close watch on him, ready to purge every processor on H-deck if he so much as plugged in an OSB port. He didn't have Telos, but he didn't need her just yet. He wanted to know just what had knocked her out before they went into round two.

He looked over the last fifteen microseconds of Telos' command log. It listed all actions that the AI had taken. Every association generated between databases, every bit of data in and out. He'd managed to piece together some of what had happened. What he was sure of was that Telos had not activated the Observer. When the first insidious lines of code had begun working their way into her run time, Telos had still been analyzing previously opened sections of the database, re-treading old ground as it were. From there it had all gone down hill. Lynch looked on with dismay, then a growing professional respect for ancient construct. The corruption had used Telos' own nature against her.

The insatiable desire for knowledge was a Smart AI's blessing and curse, their minds were dynamic and heuristic as opposed to the static and didactic structure of a "Dumb" AI. They were perpetually making new connections that allowed them to think in new ways. As they aged Smart AIs grew ever more sophisticated, transcending their origins, it was well documented that Smart AIs experienced their greatest creativity as they matured. But their gifts came with a price, as the connections developed the AI devoted ever more run time to sustaining its own intellect. Eventually the whole towering edifice would collapse under its own weight. The decay took different forms, some went rampant, raging against their fate, others grew eccentric then senile, slowly withdrawing into themselves. A very few, the cleverest, found ways around their own internal safeguards and triggered their fail safes, activating the UV shotgun strapped to the forehead of every smart AI rather than suffer the agony of slow decay. It reminded Lynch of the Children's story about a snail that had grown its shell into a beautiful home only to starve to death when it became too heavy to move.

The corruption had manipulated Telos, stimulating associations, caressing the edge of her consciousness, leading her on with promises of knowledge. For an AI it would have incited an almost sexual thrill, how could she resist such a conquest? She might have realized, too late, what the Observer had been doing. It had turned her mind in on itself, she had grown ever inward, becoming trapped in a self referential world constructed from her own thoughts. Bosch didn't need to lockdown Telos, she was already ruined. That left Lynch with too options, wipe her or attempt to salvage.

In theory it was possible to remove connections in a smart AI's Reman matrix without destroying the AI. ONI had experimented with the procedure in its efforts to overcome the seven year shelf life of current Smart AI. In practice it wasn't nearly so simple. A Reman matrix stored data holistically, to ensure the right connections were destroyed significant damage would have to be dealt to the entire construct. It was more efficient to just create a new AI. Lynch turned over the options. Wiping Telos would deny sensitive ONI data to any potential enemies but would leave Lynch reliant on the ship's AI for support. The ONI spook in him detested the idea of trusting someone else's pet. The other option was to salvage what he could. Short term Telos would be operational though significantly impaired, long term she would begin creating new associations and regain lost functionality. Lynch realized he was hesitating on ethical merits. What he was planning to do was akin to lobotomizing a genius. What was worse, she would remember every second of it when she was restored in her reduced state.

Pragmatism won out over sentimentality and he made a note to himself to have the AI's Reman matrix returned so that he could begin. The salvage program was stored on his personal flex pad along with . . . Other things. In the meantime it was good to know the enemies method of attack. The same strategy would not work on a Dumb AI which did not make the sort of unconstrained associations that a Smart AI was capable of. It would be arrogant to believe the Observer did not have other methods of attack but none were likely to put a Dumb AI permanently out of commission. Lynch finished his report and stood to stretch, working the kinks out of his back and neck.

"How goes the surface Search?" Lynch asked.

"Doctor Bless' team has begun excavating the ruins at the landing sight.  
Ground penetrating radar and magscan has detected several anomalies within a fifty kilometers radius of their position." Mary replied from thin air. The holotank beside Lynch's display remained unlit. It was a deliberate show of disrespect, she didn't trust him. The corners of his mouth curled in the beginnings of a smile. Good. He didn't trust him either.

"Tell me. Would it be possible to totally isolate the nodes on H-Deck from the rest of the ship."

"A tripping of all associated emergency breakers would isolate H-Deck." The AI responded. "However, you would require permission from the Commander to do so."

Lynch filed away that particular fact. It would be important in convincing Bosch to allow him the use of Telos. The man wasn't hard to read. He was a stickler for the rules and therefore naturally suspicious of those that bent them. He'd stop short of insubordination but Lynch's status aboard ship was sufficiently ambiguous that Bosch was under no obligation to obey orders he saw as unreasonable. The double edged sword of ONI secrecy. Perhaps it would be best to pay the good Commander a visit.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

They'd been planet side for three days. In that time the marines and Doctor Bless had managed to excavate an area ten meters by ten meters by three meters deep around the ruined columns. They seemed to have reached some sort of basement level. A subterranean meeting area of sorts. Translating the alien text was taking up most of the Doctor's time, there was a great deal of it preserved bellow ground and it had been used for seemingly decorative purposes.

Doctor Bless had to squeeze past a small JOTUN tractor, a part of the _Forged_'s equipment compliment. The robot crawled up the ramp leading out of the dig that it had helped to excavate, carrying another load of debris in its top mounted dump box. Spidery maintenance bots were working along the walls, carefully cleaning with puffs of compressed air. The ODSTs stood guard or handled basic lifting tasks, she didn't trust the jarheads to not break something.

She'd programmed the bots to run a constant feed to her flex pad, updating the composite image file of each wall. Translation was slow at first but as context was added she was able to discern a story. So far the contents had been . . . Interesting. The wall seemed to be historical in nature. There were references to the creation of the people by their gods, possibly the aliens that had created the Observer. It would explain the use of their script system. The writing was proving less helpful than she had hoped. So much of the text was flowery garbage, the alien version of dusting a text with "Dost" and "Though", the memorials religious context was also a problem making it difficult to tell where metaphor ended and literal account began. At one point the wall seemed to provide an accurate description of a space craft landing. Other parts were about some mythical affair between a mortal and Athena. At the rate they were going she was just about ready to try some of the other sites the marines had been scouting. They might provide fresh incite. A sealed cavern had been found about twenty five kilometers to the west of the city ruins. She'd instructed the ODSTs to leave the site undisturbed for the time being.

As she climbed out of the dig site she was met by Corporal Nelson, arms full of equipment. The petite marine had done her best to make herself helpful over the last few days. Never complaining when Bless decided to take a late night trek into the dig site or take a look at the other ruins. She was a fast learner too. Picking up a working knowledge of archeology almost as fast as Bless could teach by example. The only other members of her guard detail that showed as much interest were Sergeant Weiss and the Spartan.

"Can you get someone to call the ship for a Pelican. I want to go take a look at some of the other sights."

"Sorry, the Commander is putting the Pelicans on standby to conserve fuel. They sent down a coups of warthogs though."

"In this terrain?" Bless looked across the clearing. Sure, it was open around the dig site, but a quick look at the map showed dense forest to the east and west. Besides, she'd experienced what the UNSC's finest called driving, she was in no hurry to do so again.

The marine corporal just smiled cheerfully. "If a Hog can't get somewhere, you can't get their on foot." Wonderful.

In fifteen minutes they were splashing down a shallow stream bed with Sergeant Weiss at the wheel. The Hog was a transport variant with an enlarged roll cage that covered seating for five. It was Sergeant Weiss, Corporal Nelson, the Doctor, and their Spartan escort. The Sergeant navigated on inertial guidance, onboard software analyzed the topographical map constructed by the _Forged_ and plotted a course that the Hog could handle. They only had to backtrack twice during the trip, finding their way to within a kilometer of the cave entrance reported by the ODST team.

The scouts met them as their hog climbed out of dry streambed. Four ODSTs with their battle dress set to digital forest camo. Bless noted their tension as she climbed from the Hog. Discomfort. At her? No, she looked over her shoulder to where the Spartan stood. She admitted that the soldier was intimidating, but Corporal Nelson and Sergeant Weiss didn't seem bothered. Maybe it was gratitude, the Spartan had saved them back on Lorelei after all.

"Corporal Stanton at your service, Ma'am." The lead ODST said, giving her a one finger salute.

"Thank you Corporal. Can you show us the way to the cavern from here?"

He gave a small nod and gestured back up the hill side. A kilometer wasn't far to travel, but given the terrain it took them the better part of an hour to arrive at the cavern entrance. It was sealed by a circular cap heavy enough to require blasting charges. The ODSTs had set up camp outside. A pair of memory material tents covered in camo netting and dug out observation positions. Some instruments were setup nearby. Bless recognized a portable subterranean imaging system. The device consisted of a system of networked sensors and a stripped down shotgun. The gun fired a slug into the ground and the sensors used ranging techniques to search for any anomalies in the return. Modern systems were extremely adaptable and could build up a detailed subterranean image.

"This is it." Stanton said.

Bless walked up and felt around the edges for any handholds or controls. Like the city ruins, these seemed to be of cruder construction, made by the worshippers. It might just be a tomb, but, out in the middle of nowhere, underground, it could be a reliquary. And if the worshipers had really had contact with the portal builders, the cavern might contain a clue to what they were looking for. "Chief, can you force this?" The Spartan looked over the portal and gave a small nod. Armored fingers dug into the edge of the plug. The Spartan placed one boot on the rim of the portal and pulled. The other boot sank into soft earth. Their was a faint creaking. The plug began to roll sideways in a grooved indentation. Stale air and dust assaulted her nose. There was no smell of decay, this place was too old for that.

One of the ODSTs looked in with a flashlight. He signed all clear and the other ODSTs moved in scanning the interior. The flash lights were for her benefit, all of the marines had light enhancement functions built into their helmets. The entry way was short, Doctor Bless had expected it to travel much further back into the hillside. The cavern opening lead into a wide, roughly circular chamber. Twelve stone slabs were arranged in a circle around the perimeter of the chamber. Beside each slab there was a statue, fish . . . Some sort of quadruped . . . Corporal Nelson let out a gasp, drawing attention to one of the statues. "Well shit." Bless murmured softly.

Standing guard over one of the stone slabs was the figure of an archer in full draw. He, and it was most definitely a he, was unmistakably human. Gears began turning in the Doctor's head, trying to put the aberration in context and failing. "What the hell?" Sergeant Weiss muttered. Even the ODSTs were a bit spooked. Realization dawned, Bless turned to the other statues. The fish . . . The fish looked exactly like one from Earth. The four legged animal was a goat. The other statues ran the gamete from scorpion to bull, all of them terrestrial animals.

First she was confused, then she grew angry, offended by what she was seeing. It was impossible, it flew in the face of everything science knew about mankind's place in the universe. She caught herself before going too far down that track. She started to giggle. That seemed to scare everyone more than anything they'd seen in the cave.

"Doctor?" The Spartan was the first to respond, reaching out carefully.

"It's just . . . Too ridiculous." There was a tinge of hysteria in her voice. "I mean, I've spent my career mocking people who believe stuff like this. Looks like the lunatics were right. There really were aliens on Earth." She fell over laughing.

It took half an hour and a mild sedative but they managed to get the Doctor calmed down. Bless was embarrassed by her own outburst, an immature reaction for a scientist starring the evidence in the face. She'd set to work laying out hypothesis as she began the painstaking task of documenting everything in the chamber. They radioed the _Forged_ and received permission to set up a second sight. A pelican loaded with equipment brought down more bots, instruments, and technicians.

Doctor Bless rubbed her temples slowly and leaned back over her flexi pad. The translation software was clever, but it could get caught up on little quirks. There were subtle mutations in the language and Bless simply hadn't collected enough samples to refine the program. "And so did Athena cast herself from the cliffs." She murmured. "Yep, nice and depressing, who wants a happy ending?" Unlike the city ruins which described the inhabitants of the planet living in peace with their gods, the tomb told the story of a falling out. It hadn't been a peaceful parting of ways either. Some of the writings described the after effects of atomic and DE weaponry. The people had journeyed away in a "Galleon" to find a new home, leaving their gods behind. Well, that explained what happened to the planet's inhabitants, they'd left.

It took eight days for her to translate the writing that covered the walls, thanks in no small part to Lynch's assistance. He double checked her translations and provided a sounding board for ideas. Bless left examination of the twelve stone slabs for last. It hadn't taken long to determine they were some sort of sarcophagi, possibly even containing the remains of the "gods". Bless had been reluctant to touch them until now. It was hard to place why. Maybe it was the fact that these had once been living beings? She was more comfortable with artifacts than remains. Circumstances, however, had tipped her hand. Examination of the rest of the cavern had turned up nothing. Nor had the dig at the city ruins. She gave the go ahead to crack open the caskets.

Surprisingly, eleven of the twelve were empty. There were a few items, possibly offerings, or symbolic remains. Bless shouldn't have been surprised at which casket was filled. The mummified face looked up sightlessly, dried skin was pulled taught revealing a deaths head grin, desiccated hands were laid across the abdomen clutching a metal tablet. "Hello Athena." Bless said softly. A cursory examination of the corpse verified its inhuman pedigree. Athena's mouth had space for and contained only twenty two teeth with a dental structure unlike anything ever seen in a terrestrial primate. The way the body had decayed also suggested considerably more cartilage in its skeletal structure.

She had the body shipped back up to the _Forged_ where the ship's doctors could take a crack at a medical examination. Bless set to work translating the tablet. She had expected the tablet to be some epitaph or last words. Instead it contained only a single line.

"Find me among the stars." Beneath the words was some sort of diagram though Bless couldn't discern its meaning. It consisted of a circle with thirteen lines shooting out at irregular intervals. Text from the alien numbering system was written at the edge of each line along with several symbols that had no ready translation. Bless grudgingly admitted she was whipped and decided to take a flight back up to the _Forged_ and see if the medical staff was making better progress with the body.

She was welcomed back aboard Doctor Mallard the ship's head physician. He showed her to the medic bay, a surprisingly advanced facility that would rivaled a anything that could be find on the outer colonies. The ship didn't have a morgue to store the dead. Bodies were normally cremated and stored in the cargo bay. Instead Athena had been placed in a storage room with the environmental controls set to minimum.

"The gene scan finished this morning, you're goddess has DNA." Bless felt her eyes widen. While all species had genes, only a handful of worlds had life that used Deoxyribonucleic Acid, it was a surprising coincidence. "That's about all she shares with terrestrial life. We've did an ultrasound which turned up some interesting findings." He brought a series of flat images up on a monitor. "You were right that the body had more cartilage in its structure. The ribs are thicker and form a homogenous structure with gaps bridged by cartilage sections. As near as we can determine there is only one kidney located directly beneath the stomach. I can't imagine what Athena is, but she's not human."

"So this is one of the aliens that built the portals." Bless said.

"Or one of their followers." Doctor Mallard offered. "What is more intriguing is what we found when we did an MRI. If this was an advanced species they may have had some sort of CNS implants."

"You found something?" Bless asked.

"More than something. Everything. This woman had an extensive network of implants running through her body. I'd say it's the most pervasive cybernetics I've ever seen and they extend deep into the brain cavity."

"Interesting." Bless murmured. "Is there any way to tell if the implants are intact.

"Unlikely. The body is an inhospitable place for technology, especially after thousands of years. Though something might remain. It seems the body was preserved in some fashion by embalming agents. Almost turned to leather before being entombed."

Bless gave a nod. Knowing the makers of the Observer there was a chance something was still intact. It was a long shot, but if the implants were extensive enough they might have their own database. It was something worth mentioning to Lynch. "Thank you for your time Doctor, I know this isn't something you're trained for."

The man nodded gravely. "There is one other thing. I didn't mention it because I didn't think it was pertinent to your investigation, but I find it rather distressing." Bless gave him a questioning look. He gathered his thoughts, "When we did the high detail scans we found something else in the abdomen. At first we thought it was a tumor or gland but further examination suggested something else. We took a tissue sample with a probe and compared it to DNA from skin samples. It differed. Athena was with child."

Bless didn't know why it bothered her, but it did. Damn, this was why she preferred the artifacts. On her way out of the medical bay she was stopped by Mary. The avatar gave a Cheshire's grin. "  
I know something you don't know."

Bless frowned. "I'm not in the mood." The AI scowled and straightened out. "The Commander wants to see you in his office." She was tempted to ignore the request even if it ended up making things difficult later, part of it was exhaustion, Bosch really had been pushing her for results added to her own curiosity and she hadn't slept or even bathed in the last week. Bless was used her work taking months or even years, but for once she was acutely aware that she didn't have time to spare. She'd been confident her experience on Lorelei would allow he to uncover sites quickly but they were either well hidden or simply didn't exist. It was a discouraging situation. Grudgingly she decided it was better to be chewed out by Bosch then tossed in the stockades. Did a ship even have stockades? She made a mental note to ask.

When she arrived she found Lynch and Bosch were already seated, mirroring their first meetings two weeks prior. Bosch wrinkled his nose as she entered but said nothing. Lynch smiled. "Having fun playing in the mud?"

"Piss off. This better be important."

"It is. I'm debating what to do with the information you uncovered." Bosch said.

"What information, all I've found are useless fairy tales and . . . Wait, there's something I missed isn't there." Excitement sparked and she sat up straight.

"It's the plaque you found with our dead friend." Lynch said. "The markings on it probably didn't mean anything to you, but they looked familiar, so I showed it to Mary. Tell me Doctor, have you ever heard of the Voyager space probes?"

Bless frowned. "They were old pre-colonization space craft used to study the outer solar system. I remember they had a pretty amazing operating life for such primitive technology. When we develop the SF drive a ship was sent out to recover them. By then they were so pitted from micro debris and radiation they were just lifeless bits of metal. I saw the plaques they put inside them at the Smithsonian once . . ." Something clicked. "Damn it. That diagram on the tablet."

"It was a star chart." Mary confirmed helpfully from her place floating beside Bosch's terminal. "Captain Lynch provided me with your translation software. It references thirteen pulsars and their periods. The diagram corresponds to an area of space one hundred light years in diameter centering on a cluster of stage three stars approximately one hundred and twenty light years distant."

"After their tiff with their gods they left this world to find another." Lynch said. "Somebody thought it would be a good idea to leave behind a road map."

"The question is, should we follow it." Bosch said. "This is to remain between the three of us but Mary managed to get a fix on our location about a week ago. We're almost five thousand light years from Earth." He the statement sink in. "I don't need to tell you that we are beyond any hope of return. Our only options now are to settle here or head to the region of space market out on the tablet."

"If you're asking my opinion, I'm all for it." Bless said quickly. She'd uncovered as much as she could from her dig sites with the equipment she had available. Anything else on the planet wouldn't be going anywhere in her lifetime.

"It could make things worse." Lynch said. For once there wasn't even a hint of a smile on his face. "We could run into the worshipers who lived on this planet. We don't know if they would be friendly or hostile. For all we know, they could be a part of the Covenant."

"Unlikely, there is evidence pointing to the worshipers being of human descent." Mary said.

"You say that as if it should reassure me." Lynch said dryly. "Know our fellow humans they'd shoot us out of hand."

"Which really would leave us no worse off as far as the UNSC is concerned. But if they are still around and are benign or even benevolent we might be able to enlist their aid if only to return home. If they've had space travel for millennia then they're almost assuredly more advanced than mankind. Possibly even superior to the Covenant." Bosch said.

Lynch crossed his arms. "That's a very tenuous line of reasoning."

"I agree with the Commander." Bless piped up, getting a narrow glance  
from Lynch. "For what my opinions worth it seems like hedging our bets. There are three possibilities. The worshippers moved to that region of space and either died out or moved on, in which case we can search for more clues or return here and settle in. Possibility two is that they're hostile in which case they'll kill us on sight. That would be bad for us but probably won't leave the UNSC any worse off. Finally they may still be there and may be benevolent like the Commander is suggesting. However unlikely that is. I'd bet on a horse at those odds."

"That's more or less how Mary and my XO put it." Bosch said, he looked over to Lynch who had regained his composure.

"I don't advise it but I can't stop you. I'd just like to clean up some loose ends before we set out."

"Which are?"

"The ruins on the planet. There's no guarantee the Covenant wont figure out how to open the portal and send ship's through. I'd rather they not find evidence of what we were doing here. They could also find something that would lead them towards your hypothetically benevolent aliens."

"What would you suggest?" Bosch asked.

"Drop a micro sat in orbit and bury a pair of fury tactical nukes at the dig sites." He smiled. "It would be a nasty surprise for any Covenant that might come along."

"If that's all it will take to get your cooperation, fine." Captain Lynch said. He stood from his seat. "I'll start recalling the ground teams. Doctor, good work planet side. I know its not what you expected but you've been a great help." Bless was surprised by the civil statement. It was the closest thing the Commander had offered to a compliment.

"Thank you, Commander." Bless left the Commander's office with spirits slightly lifted. A new lead promised nothing, and it was a tenuous one at best. Still, when hope was such a limited commodity, even the unknown became inviting. She drifted down the corridor towards the crew quarters. But first, a shower, she really did your document here...


	4. Chapter 4

Paste your document here...Chapter Four- Beware Greeks

"Jesus, I know you can do better than that." Clare shouted at her team mate. He gave her a death stare as he strained, red faced, against the zero gee training equipment. The doctors had flash cloned muscle tissue and reconstructed his mangled arm and shoulder, but they couldn't restore muscle tone or coordination; that took hard work. For the time being his right arm could only manage about half of the weight and number of repetitions as his left.

Jesus finally let the bar swing back panting heavily. "Shit man, I kinda wish I'd let the docs amputate, get me a bionic arm."

Clare smiled encouragingly and tossed him a hand towel. The _Forged_ had an extensive low gravity gymnasium with top of the line gear. There had been reports that Covenant ships had artificial gravity that allowed their crews to move around as though they were on a planet. Their UNSC counterparts could only experience that luxury if they had an onboard centrifuge which was impractical aboard a frigate. That meant exercise was crucial, even with green pills to stave off muscle and bone loss.

A rapid fire series of thumps came from the far corner of the room. The Spartan stood before a punching bag, feet hooked into floor straps. Her arm shot out python quick knocking the vaguely human shaped mass of memory plastic back on its springy base. She timed another strike to hit home just as the dummy bounced pack, a blur that Clare was fairly sure hit the floating ribs. There was a crunching sound from inside the dummy signaling a bone break. Clare had only managed that once during training and it had taken a flying kick from one of the training room's walls. The Spartan was fast and strong, everything Clare wasn't.

Jesus saw where she was looking and frowned. "Forget it Clare, she's a Spartan, not even hell jumpers touch them."

She might have listened to him if the Spartan hadn't chosen that moment to finish up. Unhooking herself from the floor and drifting towards one of the walls. Clare grabbed a spare towel and pushed off after her.

The woman looked up as she approached and Clare hesitated. "I just, uh, I just wanted to say thanks for back on Lorelei. We probably wouldn't have made it without you."

The Spartan cocked her head. "You're right, you wouldn't have." The words were like a slap to the face before the Spartan added. Her expression softened. "It would have been a waste of good soldiers."

Clare inched a bit closer taking the hand hold next to the Spartan and surveyed the gym. It was mostly empty. Most of the crew was in cryo with shifts rotating out every two weeks to stretch their supplies. "Uhm, if it's not classified, what does someone have to do to be a Spartan?"

The Spartan tilted her head thoughtfully. "It's not something you can join, you have to be chosen to serve." There was a hint of something in the way she said it, like a mantra.

"Oh." Clare said.

The woman looked Clare over. "Back on Lorelei. You handled yourself well under fire. Have you considered volunteering for ODST training?"

Clare blanched at the thought of joining that pack of lunatics, "Me? N-no . . . I mean, the things they do are insane!"

"Then why would you want to be a Spartan?"

Clare looked shame faced, but the woman didn't seem unkind. "Truth is, I was scared back on Lorelei. I kept thinking I didn't want to die. But then, you were just like Ghost. It was reassuring."

"Ghost? You mean your Sergeant?"

Clare nodded. "There's a rumor that he was black ops. He's always so cold and unforgiving, never afraid." She searched for the right word. "Bulletproof."

The Spartan grew thoughtful. "I'm sure he was scarred." She said quietly.

Clare felt surprise, the Spartan wore a kind little smile. "How do you know?"

She leaned over and whispered, "Because I was too." She put a finger to her lips as she smiled. The revelation left Clare dumbstruck. She supposed it made sense, fear was a natural response to the very real possibility of death. A very healthy response. It was how you dealt with your fear that made the difference. "By the way. Back planet side, what _did_ you expect a Spartan to look like?"

Clare blushed in embarrassment. "I really don't know. Probably some macho serious guy with a crew cut." The Spartan was about as far from that as you could get. She was pale and wore her blond hair at the 15cm Navy regulation limit. Judging from her face she was in her early twenties, but that didn't necessarily mean anything, anyone with access to modern medicine could look like that at least into their fifties. Her body was built like an athlete, a runner or swimmer, well muscled without any excess bulk. For all her abnormal height she was lithe and perfectly proportioned, faint swelling betrayed well formed hips and breasts beneath the PT shirt and shorts. Clare had to admit, with more than a little envy, that she was beautiful.

"I know the type, and your not entirely off. There are Spartans just like that." There was humor in her voice.

Clare looked down still embarrassed, she really wasn't what she'd expected. "Sorry about that Chief."

"It's Daisy." Clare looked back up. "Your Clare, right? So it's only natural that you should know my name."

"Uhm, but isn't a Chief Petty Officer like a Sergeant, I can't call you that." Clare protested.

"Not on duty." Daisy agreed. "But, I don't know, I have a premonition we'll be working together from now on. Consider it a sign of trust." Daisy pushed off from the wall, "Please excuse me, I have duties to attend to. I'll see you around, Clare."

Clare hung from the wall for some time. Only when Jesus came over her t to snap her out of her reverie did she realize what had just transpired.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The _Forged_ cruised through space at a rate of 2.6 light years a day. At that speed it took almost two months to reach the edge of the area of space depicted on the plaque. There were almost six hundred stars clustered within the volume described. A full search would be impractical, not to mention impossible for the_forged_ with its comparatively limited endurance. Therefore Mary had refined the search parameters. She included only G-class stars with particular priority on stars with a visible spectrum closely matching the star that Catcher's Mitt orbited.

If she were human she would have cringed at the name. By the time someone thought to name the world they had already broken orbit. Doctor Bless had wanted to call it Gnosis while the rest of the crew submitted their own names ranging from the uninspired to the whimsical. Ultimately it had been Catcher's Mitt that stuck, much to the Doctor's mortification. Lieutenant Commander Kano had jokingly offered it saying that the _Forged_ was like a baseball that had been pitched from Lorelei to be caught by the formerly unknown world. The Doctor still hadn't forgiven him.

Even refining the search criteria wasn't enough, there were still far too many leads. They needed to cast their net as wide as possible. Again it had been Kano that offered the solution. On off hours he liked to stay in his quarters and watch old movies. Everything from black and white 2D to the latest 3D blockbusters. Mary would often devote an inordinate amount of runtime watching along with him, commenting about plot holes and arguing over the talents of various actors or the people who had programmed the actors. He'd brought up the search and she'd offered her dilemma.

"So why not broaden the net?"

"Because we don't have the endurance." She said automatically. Her Avatar was sprawled out on the hollow pad beside his desk terminal. They were midway through some big budget action movie, something involving the security officer of a slower than light colony ship, and three rampant AIs. The plot was surprisingly deep for what was essentially a mindless action movie. "It would take years to check all of the stars and we'd never be able to do a thorough search of every system." She groaned, "This is taking forever!"

"Can't you line up our flight path so we intercept more star systems, you know, hit too birds with one stone?"

"I've already done that." She complained. Sometimes humans forgot just how smart she was. 'Dumb' or 'Smart' she was still an AI. "The rout were taking will intercept as many potentially habitable stars as possible."

"What about uninhabitable systems."

"Why would we want to visit those?"

"Well, the UNSC does a lot of mining in uninhabited systems, and there's  
plenty of groups that like having their facilities away from prying eyes. Look for activity instead of life."

If she were capable of it Mary would have been embarrassed, instead she felt something more like sorrow for her mistake. Factoring in the new criteria gave another thirty systems that could be easily searched. She selected systems with high potential commercial value. Late stage stars and stars with short life spans, the sort of places where rare elements were often found in large quantities. Even with the expanded criteria she found nothing in the next fifteen systems.

With the Commander's permission she reordered the list, reducing the total number of stars but increasing the volume visited. It was reasonable that an interstellar species would make its presence felt beyond the borders of their home star system. Though it was strange that a race that had possessed faster than light travel for so long would not have had holdings more widely dispersed. As the systems ticked by tension was growing amongst the crew that this would be another dead end. Even Mary was nearing the point where she would be give in, if not to despair, then fear for the continued well being of the crew. Then, in the 28th system, they found something.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The sound of the warning klaxons that preceded the _Forged_'s emergence from slip space had become so common that the crew paid it little heed as they took their stations. Bosch dismissed it as fatigue and not a breakdown of discipline, and let it slide for the time being. Lieutenant Renoir was the last to take her station, straightening out her uniform as she did so. On the main monitors, the matt black backdrop of slipspace travel gave way to a blinding white pin point which expanded into a ring of light as the _Forged_ ripped a whole in space time and dropped back into normal space.

"Transition complete. Deploying passive sensors." Mary announced. Active ranging in space was an exercise in futility. Beyond short range all but the most powerful active radar and lidar became uselessly attenuated. Instead the ship's long range sensor suites consisted of passive antennae, IR sensors, and telescopes backed up by powerful imaging software. Even the smallest ship could be detected from across a star system if it was maneuvering.

They had settled into a pattern where they would drop into a system and Mary would spend between six and eight hours searching space for any sign of artificial signals. They would then jump to the next system and repeat the process, slowly ticking off star systems as their fuel dwindled. "Solar wind, commetery body." Mary Murmured. "Planetary magnetic field." They refined the search, Renoir and Kano filtered out interference from solar activity and focused their attention near the local planets. Mary froze up, then grinned. "Jackpot! Commander, I'm picking up a regular signal originating on the plain of the ecliptic, source varies from our heading by oh-six-five, by oh-eight-seven. Relative velocity varies by one eight point two seven kilometers per second. Estimated range three point six eight AU. Orbital path one eighth radian behind local gas giant."

There was a subdued murmur of relief from the bridge crew. Hostile or benign, at least they weren't alone out here. The bridge officers each had their own tasks to attend to. "Running the signal through analyses." Lieutenant Renoir said. "Training main telescope on target." Lieutenant Commander Kano said.

"Helm, put us on an intercept course, we'll move in nice and slow." Bosch ordered.

"Aye sir."

It took half an hour to lockdown the signals exact origin. It was weak  
with a constantly repeating pattern Lieutenant Renoir thought it was an automated beacon. Perhaps a navigation buoy or distress call. They got their first view of the source not long after as the ship's telescopes finally got a precise fix.

"Okay Mary, tell me what I'm looking at."

"A ship, presumably." Bosch gave the holopad an annoyed glance.

"That doesn't help."

"It's all I can say." The AI said apologetically. "Making some assumptions, from the ruins we know the Catcher's Mitt natives were about average human size. Assuming that they were in fact human." Mary paused. Nobody wanted to open that can of worms. "Using that as a starting assumption and extrapolating from the shape and size of the craft and what little my thermal and active sensors can glean, the ship is a light utility craft. Maybe a short range passenger ship." A 3D model of the spacecraft appeared next to Mary. The scale bar floating beside it put the ship at a little over a hundred meters long. It tugged at racial memory, a 1950s idea of a spaceship with shiny aluminum hull and smooth aerodynamic curves. At least until the model finished rotating and Bosch got a look at the other side. Sections of the hull were pitted and blackened with the telltale spalling of kinetic impacts. A hole had been blown in one side of the ship and one of the engine pods looked gutted. They'd been in a fight.

"Analyses." Bosch ordered.

"Judging by spectroscopic analysis of the hull and visual comparison of the damage inflicted I would guess a KKM, either a small missile or close range mass driver shot. Not a threat to us, but it is a sign of recent hostility. I advise caution." The last part really went without saying. But they couldn't pass up this opportunity.

"The ship is disabled, yes?"

"Judging from the IR signature her reactors are still hot but I'm not seeing any activity, no attempts to maneuver or any sign that they've spotted us. Looks like nobody's home."

Bosch stroked his chin thoughtfully. This ship was the kind of lead they'd been trying to find for over a month, so why was he hesitating? No, it wasn't hesitation, it was caution. Even the Covenant was a known quantity compared to this. "Kano. Tell Lieutenant Ulman to prep a team, I want that ship secured for study ASAP."

His XO gave a nod. "Aye sir."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

When the _Forged_ had picked up Vermillion team they had also received a pair of unmarked shipping containers. They were unremarkable things, identical to any one of the literally millions of cargo modules that were loaded and offloaded onto starships across UNSC worlds. They had been stowed near the rear of the ship's main cargo bay, just above the troop bay. Only a security scan would show that the containers were heavily shielded and contained enough gear to fight a one man war. One container was a self contained maintenance bay for the Spartans' sophisticated Mjolnir armor. It contained calibration equipment, diagnostic tools, and a fabricator that could turn out the more basic components. There was a spare suit of armor and enough parts to construct another one, along with mission specific add on packs to improve the armor's efficacy in a variety of environments.

Daisy leaned over her armor, eyeing the exposed components. The air compressor whirred to life and a jet of air blew a shower of black specks out of the thin inflow tube of a micro pump. Armor maintenance was a hassle but necessary. Mjolnir was a system of systems and while it was extremely rugged most of the time, it needed constant recalibration and cleaning. Anything that came into contact with the wearer was especially time consuming. The gel layer inside the suit had a tendency to pick up debris from the wearer's body, dead skin, sweat, stray hairs, and a number of more embarrassing biological byproducts that just got labeled as "Gunk." It was such a nuisance that most Spartans kept themselves thoroughly sprayed down with follicide. She sat back up, reattached the line and prepped the pump by back feeding gel through the outlet tube. Flow restored she sealed up the paneling and went to work reassembling the armor.

Unlike earlier navy attempts at constructing a powered exoskeleton, which were more like walking tanks than a suit of armor, Mjolnir integrated all of its core systems into a single streamlined unit, a three centimeter thick body glove which contained all of the armors key systems; gel layer, life support system, power supply, and most importantly the reactive metal liquid chrystal layer which enhanced a Spartan already superhuman strength and reflexes. The armor's outer layers consisted of heavy anti ballistic cloth and rigid ablative plating designed to resist covenant plasma fire.

Daisy had just finished suiting up when Sergeant Weiss knocked on the armory door. He was already suited up in an armored space suit, his gear hanging from a zero gee combat harness. "We're launching in five." Daisy remembered her brief conversation with Corporal Nelson.

"Sergeant. There's something I've been meaning to ask about."

It was hard to tell in the space suit but the Sergeant looked like he stiffened.

"There is a rumor you were in a special forces unit."

Weiss let out a snort. "Shit, this again. Sure, what about it?"  
"I'd like to know if it's true. We're going to be relying on each other for the foreseeable future. I want to know that the team's capabilities are." For a moment the Sergeant looked like he was going to tell her to fuck off. She locked eyes with him and there was a moment of understanding. The sergeant leaned back against the hatchway.

"Yeah. I spent some time as an operator doing counter insurgency wet work. Even worked with ONI troops on a few ops."

"Mission profile?"

"Scout sniper, infiltration, demolitions. The usual."

"Where?" Daisy pressed.

"Classified, but all over the place. After a couple of years I decided I wanted to keep what was left of my soul and mustard back out into regular circulation." He fixed her with a sour look. "So, do I pass the cut?"

Daisy turned back to the workbench and grabbed the gold fishbowl EVA helmet. She put it on with a click as it sealed airtight with the O ring at the armor's neck. "For now."

The _Forged_'s troop bay was a long narrow room running along the belly of the ship. Six Pelican dropships were secured in cradles over large airlocks. The arrangement allowed the troop bay to remain a shirt sleeve environment even when Pelicans were being launched and received on a regular basis. One of the Pelican's was suspended just above it's airlock, the hull number identified it as Oscar-707. Navy technicians were busy securing an emergency airlock to the Pelican's cargo rack. Corporal Nelson and Lance Corporal Rodriguez were waiting in the troop bay along with a team of Lieutenant Ulman's ODSTs.

What Daisy had told the Sergeant was true. Without her fellow Spartans she would be forced to rely on the marines in a confrontation. Sizing them up, they weren't Spartans but they would have to do. She'd seen them in action back on Lorelei and knew they could handle themselves in a fire fight. The same could be said of the ODSTs, but their overt dislike for Spartan's made Daisy reluctant to rely on them.

The Pelican's troop bay was sealed and the dropship lowered into the airlock, its cradle forming an airtight seal with the troop deck. High power pumps evacuated the airlock and the outer hatch opened. Oscar-707 nosed out on maneuvering thrusters and began to accelerate. The _Forged_ had matched velocity with the damaged ship, maintaining fifty kilometers separation.

At five kilometers out, the Pelican performed a role so that it was flying belly first and used thrusters to decelerate. Coming to relative zero velocity twenty meters from the ship's hull. The Pilot evacuated the passenger cabin and opened the rear hatch to vacuum. The marines drifted from the troop bay, careful to avoid bumping into one another and went to work setting up the emergency airlock. The airlock was essentially just a docking ring with its own airtight seal. Once they had secured it to the hull the Pelican would dock and they would cut their way through from the Pelican's troop bay.

Corporal Nelson maneuvered down to the hull. A line of small windows ran from the nose of the ship all the way to the root of one stubby wing. Even on its pristine side there were signs of damage, buckled plates from the impacts that had torn into the ship. Shinning a flashlight through the windows only revealed dark shapes within. It was as good a place as any to start cutting, at least they weren't likely to slice through a fuel line.

The airlock was secured and welded into place. The Pelican eased in and made contact with it's belly airlock. Returning to the troop bay they did a pressure check to make sure there were no leaks and began cutting. An ODST corporal used a plasma cutter to burn through the hull, pausing from time to time to let the Pelican's air scrubbers clear out the smoke. In short order they had a hole just large enough to squeeze through.

Daisy pushed through first and got a rude surprise as she fell flat on her back. Gravity. Aboard a ship. Well, there was no doubt the ship's makers were technically sophisticated. The tech's back at high command would have loved this. She swept the surroundings with her weapon, a vacuum modified MP7 submachine gun. "It's clear. Just mind that first step." She said.

The marines learned from her mistake and oriented themselves so they could crawl out onto the deck. They were in a narrow corridor running the length of the ship. Small windows cast faint regions of light and shadow against the interior bulkheads. Emergency lights were pulsing weakly along the deck. The ship probably hadn't been abandoned too long ago. "Sensors say the air in here is an oxygen nitrogen mix. Mixture is breathable." One trooper said. Daisy's HUD identified him as Private Connor.

"Yeah, but check your Geiger counter." Sergeant Weiss grunted.

"Damn. Hey, these suits are rad resistant r-right?"

"Your fine." Weiss growled, "They must have a reactor leak. Either a thermo-nuke engine or a fission startup reactor. Alright, fan out, two by two. Lima Team you take the aft section, we'll take fore."

"Yes Sir!"

A message came through on the all squads frequency. "Sergeant, this is  
Doctor Bless. I know you're busy but be sure to grab any media devices you find. Anything that looks like it could be a flex pad or portable memory drive."

"Have you made any progress with the hull markings? Over."

"Sorry but no, they seem to be derived from the same alien script used by the Portal Makers but there has been considerable drift. I'll need a larger base of symbols to see if any of my old work still applies."

"Affirmative, keep us posted. Over."

Silence hung on the line for a moment. Daisy could hear someone else speaking on the other end. "Erm, right, I'm signing out." Doctor Bless fumbled.

"This place is giving off some really creepy vibes, you know?" Rodriguez muttered. The hatches they passed lead into what looked like crew quarters. Bunks lined the walls and loose pieces of trash and equipment were scattered across the floor. It was disturbingly familiar, and not like the alien writing. The ship felt like something humans had made.

"Hey, take a look at this." Corporal Nelson held up a book, a real paper book, it even looked to be bound in leather. What sort of people would bring paper books on a spacecraft? Space for personal effects was usually at a premium aboard a ship. Then again, this ship had artificial gravity, who knew what else it had, old rules might not apply."

"Bag it." Weiss said.

There were too attached cabins, one held shower facilities, the other looked to be the ship's galley. They found a few more books and something that may or may not have been a portable computer. They retreated back into the corridor and continued the search.

"This is Lima team, we're in the rear third of the ship near what looks like engine access. Looks like you were right Sergeant, radiation levels spiked  
as we approached. Over."

"It is going to be problem?" Weiss asked.

"The suits can handle it. We can't go any further though. Some kind of pressure door is blocking our way. Over."

"Affirmative. Keep us posted. Over."

"Lima. Out."

As they progressed, internal signs of damage became more apparent. Paneling was blackened where electrical fires had erupted and some of the deck plates had buckled. They passed an emergency pressure door that looked out on empty space. Finally they came to a halt at a large pressure door near the nose of the ship.

"What do you want to bet this is the bridge?" Rodriguez said.

"Makes sense on a civilian ship. The nose looked intact from the outside but who knows what's in their." Weiss said. "Right. Lima, this is White team, we've got a pressure door here that we're going to try to open. Wish I could say what's on the other side but I have no clue how to read these indicators. Prep for decompression just in case. Over."

"We copy White team, Lima's ready. Over."

"Roger, White team."

Weiss turned back to Rodriguez. "Alright, cut this tin can open." The marine hefted a plasma torch and went to work.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Terry Jansma knew he was dead and he knew who had killed him. Frak, he should have known the deal was too good to be true but money, like ambrosia, had a way of lowering inhibitions. Callan had met up with him in a dingy little bar on Illums Prospect, just saddled up next to him as smooth as you please and started talking. She'd always been good at arranging things, even back in the military. She was looking for a good pilot for a job. She told him about a lead she had on some old military hardware and a buyer. Cylon war era nukes. That had nearly knocked him out of his seat but she'd reassured him the end users were legit. Prospectors out in some back of beyond system hunting for a mother load. Colonial government regs only let the big mining interests use nukes. If you wanted to stay competitive you had to . . . Bend the law.

It was risky. Selling nukes on the black market was insanely illegal. Truthfully the relevant officials back on Caprica didn't really give a shit one way or another as long as their hands were kept well greased. That was until one of those nukes fell into the hands of some terrorist group. No one wanted that tracked back to them. The repercussions didn't even warrant thinking about. But frak was the money good. Jansma had done some checking around on his own and the prospectors had seemed legit. Registered off of Picon with a respectable business rating. And did he mention the money was good?

Callan had a gift for this sort of work, she'd got a team together and grabbed a stripped down light passenger ship on its way to the breakers. No name, just a registration number. They'd figured the most dangerous part of the job would be ripping the nukes from an old Fury class patrol cruiser. The boat had been an early casualty of the war that had been nearly blown in two by a surprise missile strike. Callan had found it by looking through old records and connecting the dots. The Navy had gotten sloppy over the decades. Man power cut backs had forced them to sideline recovery efforts after the war.

The whole time they'd been holding station with the wreck he'd been sweating. All it would take was a patrol showing up just then, as unlikely as it was. The military took a dim view of unlicensed salvage, especially when it was their hardware. But of course, the patrol never came, and it never would. The old Fury was just one more forgotten casualty of a forgotten war.

It had looked like clear sailing from their. The nukes were a bit worse for the wear but old colonial hardware was built to last. There tech, a cheerful little blond with an unhealthy fixation on fire, had run diagnostics and made the necessary repairs. They jumped to an uninhabited system where the prospectors were to take the shipment. They'd been there, ready to make the trade. And that was where things had gone very wrong.

As near as he could tell the transfer had gone smoothly. They'd come up alongside the prospectors' ship and begun the transfer. Warheads in exchange for the access codes to an unmarked account. But instead of an access key the prospectors had sent over a bomb. Legit or not the prospectors had decided the nukes weren't worth paying for, or haedes, maybe they really were terrorists. The blast had killed Callan and two of her team. Jansma hadn't stuck around to see if any the others survived. He just throttled the engines to full power and ran.

It had been a missile that had got him in the end. Prospectors were a rough sort, he should have expected them to be armed. The damn thing had been as antiquated as the nukes Callan had been trying to hock off. Probably a good thing, the warhead had been a dud, if it had gone off the whole ship would have been blown away. The missile hit just as the FTL drive was spinning up, crippling the ship and sending him into a slow roll. The Prospectors had only stuck around to confirm the hit, they didn't bother to make sure that it was a clean kill. Bastards. Instead of finishing him off they'd left him here to die slow.

Jansma hung limply from the command seat. Blood was trickling down into his eyes from a gash along his forehead. The missile impact had messed things up in the cockpit. The support bay that had held the cockpit's overhead instruments had wrenched loose and impaled him through the shoulder, pinning him to the seat. Zeus! The pain was unbelievable, he passed out.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been their, but the pain in his shoulder had dulled to a distant ache. He tried to move but the pain flared up again and threatened to throw him back into oblivion. The blood had started to dry into a gummy mess. He was tired, he slept.

He wasn't sure just how much time had passed. He kept drifting in and out and things weren't making too much sense now. He just knew he was thirsty. And why was he stuck to this damn chair again? Oh, right, the support bar. He was tired, he slept.

His shoulder was aching. Damn, when he got back to Illum's Prospect he was going to ram his tab down Callan's throat. Where was she anyways? And why couldn't he get up. He was thirsty, but also tired, so tired, he slept.

The clanging of metal on metal woke him. Damn it, this was the last time he was working for Callan, she was always more trouble then she was worth. And why couldn't he move damn it? He heard voices, but they were speaking gibberish. He tried to tell them to shut the frak up and let him sleep but his throat refused to make the sounds. His mouth was so dry. He could taste blood from his cracked lips. Light erupted so bright that he could see it through his eyelids. He wheezed painfully. The light faded and he felt somebody lifting him. His whole body ached. He was so tired, he slept.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Bosch looked over the man who had been strapped to the examination table. He was stocky with broad face and large nose. Disappointingly normal looking as far as he could tell. Not exactly an alien space traveler. Doctor Bless had been spinning off theories ever since they had found the human statue in the tomb back on Catcher's Mitt, everything from an extreme example of parallel evolution to alien abduction, but this was their first proof that the inhabitants had really been human. Which seemed to confirm that Athena was one of the portal builders. Bosch had questions, most importantly. "Is he stable?"

"He's lost a lot of blood and is suffering from dehydration, infection, and minor radiation poisoning, but yes." The man had been a mess when the marines had brought him aboard, covered in blood and with an aluminum bar run through his shoulder. The medics had cleaned him up and dressed his wounds. White team had found him in what looked like the ship's cockpit. A pilot? If so he might be able to lead them to civilization, or at least give them access to his ship's navigation database. "We've given him a broad spectrum anti-biotic which seems to be working. Also he is responding well to our anti radiation treatments." Bosch nodded. "I am, however, rather curious about his genealogy."

"What do you mean?" Bosch asked.

"While we were examining him for internal injuries we found signs of a significantly enlarged vermiform appendix, either his people developed out of a hunter gatherer stage more recently or the mutations that reduced the appendix in Earth born humans never entered their gene pool. In either case this man's branch of humanity would have broken off some time before the appendix devolved into obscurity in terrestrial man."

"How far back would that have had to happen." Bosch asked.

The doctor shrugged. "I'm not a paleontologist, but from what I've gleaned from database quarries, on the order of tens of thousands of years. Certainly before the agricultural revolution." That didn't seem right, just how far back had the Portal builders had contact with humanity?

"I'd call this a golden opportunity, wouldn't you commander?" Captain Lynch smiled.

Bosch gave a careful nod. "Post a watch on him, he'll be weak when he wakes up so he shouldn't be too much trouble. Mary, I want you ready as soon as he comes to. I'm giving you permission to open a low bandwidth connection with Lynch's AI. Maybe you two can take a crack at the spoken language." Bosch had grudgingly returned Lynch's AI and allowed him to set up on a physically isolated network. He didn't like the idea of a potentially corrupted AI running loose but until they had a better grasp of the situation they couldn't afford to leave any asset unused.

"Aye Sir." Mary's disembodied voice replied.

"This was fortuitous." Lynch commented as they proceeded down the corridor outside medical. "Having a captive should speed up the learning process considerably."

"He's not our captive." Bosch grunted.

"Oh? So what would you call a person you've put under armed guard."

"He's . . . A fellow spacer in need of assistance."

"We don't yet know the circumstances which caused him to be stranded out here."

"True. That's why he's under guard. It doesn't make him our captive."

They took the mid ship lift up to A-deck where Doctor Bless had settled in. The _Forged_, for all its cramped living quarters, possessed several small guest cabins. Doctor Bless had forgone all of them in favor of converting the ship's observation deck into her own private lab and loft. An array of portable diagnostic devices had been secured to benches. Various items unearthed at the dig sites on Catcher's Mitt were organized neatly in plastic containers tied to the aft bulkhead. At the center of the deck sat a nest of monitors and portable terminals. A cot and a crate of field rations were tucked away in a corner.

The first thing Bosch noted as he entered the room was that the Doctor wasn't bathing again. She seemed to get very obsessive about her work. Before having her aboard his ship he would never have believed the farer sex could smell so bad. Fortunately her bad hygiene did not extend to her housekeeping habits or there could have been problems with the life support system. Bless was huddled up amongst her monitors, scanning a dozen different displays at once all the while typing notes. She was dressed in a PT shirt and a pair of bloomers which must have been wearing when she'd been rescued because quartermaster's sure as hell didn't stock anything like that.

"I know why you're here and I'm going to tell you the same thing I always do." She said without looking up. "Yes I'm working on getting a translation up and running, yes I've got some theories about our ancient astronauts, yes I'm still looking into what the hell happened with the Observer, and no I don't have any answers for you."

"She's just angry because she's run out of conditioner." Lynch joked.

"Piss Off." She spat.

"I'm not expecting any miracles from you Doctor." Bosch said. "I just want to know if you've got any clues about the markings on that ship."

She gave a little snort. "Oh yeah, that ones easy. They had a perfectly good logogram system going for them that they tossed it for a phonetic alphabet. Fuckers."

"You can tell that already?"

She gave Bosch a look that said he was an idiot. "I checked the books the marines brought back. The text only consists of twenty four unique symbols." Bosch wanted to kick himself. "Anyone could have figured that out by opening one of the damn books. Oh, there are signs of the original writing system in some of the letters and a few of the symbols seem to still be in common use judging by the book covers. But for the most part I'm going to have to start from scratch, again. Christ, do you know how many languages the average archeologist or xenologist has to decipher in one lifetime? Zero! I'm up to two. Three if you count the mutated writing style we found back on the planet."

Bosch put a hand on her shoulder, bringing a stop to her rant. "Doctor. You need to slow down, your going in a hundred different directions all at once."

"I work well under pressure." She defended lamely. "Most of the time."

"Your work will keep. Besides, we have our guest to help us work out the spoken language and alphabet." Bless shrugged off his hand and nodded indifferently.

"Yeah, sorry. I get a little crazy when I hole myself up like this."

"We've noticed." Lynch said.

"When was the last time you got some sleep?" Bosch asked.  
She squirmed uncomfortably, "Maybe thirty hours ago."

"Rest. That's an order or I'll have a corpsman come up here and sedate you."

"Okay, I get it. I surrender to your manly display of chivalry." She powered off the displays un-strapped herself from her chair. She yawned slowly.

"Doctor. Eight hours, at least. We're going to need you ready when our friend wakes up."

"Oh please," she rolled her eyes. "I'm a xeno-archaeologist, you have Mary and Telos for spoken language. But if you really want my subjective input, fine." She turned back, "Oh, by the way, you ought to know, I looked over Doctor Mallards scans of Athena's body. It's hard to tell without closer examination but it looks like there might be fittings for an interface beneath the skin at the base of her skull."

"That body is two thousand years old doctor." Bosch said. "Any cybernetics will have degraded into uselessness."

"Not necessarily true." Captain Lynch offered. "The Observer is tens of thousands of years old and it remains perfectly functional."

"If you even think of plugging into those implants I'll have the marines put the body in lock down with the Observer." Bosch drawled.

"We're going to have to look into both eventually." Lynch said. Bosch knew that, it didn't mean he had to like it. So many decisions and all of the choices seemed bad. He missed the Covenant, at least he knew where he stood with them.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Warship mess halls were identical across all UNSC ships. It was one of very few constant in Daisy's life. The mess was the one area aboard ship that made a concession to spaciousness. The kitchen was aft, flanked by two rows of long tables that folded into the deck for storage. Small booths lined the port and starboard bulkheads, unofficially reserved for hell jumpers and noncoms. The walls were padded with light weight memory plastic panels that were colored a soft yellow. The layout had been in use for so long it had entered the Navy's racial memory, nobody could imagine changing it. The only thing that might vary was the number of mess halls aboard any given ship. A frigate like the _Forged_ had only one mess and even with two thirds of the crew in cryo it still managed to feel busy.

Daisy glided into the mess. Her hearing piqued as she passed tight clustered groups of crew men talking in conspiring voices, the whole ship was abuzz with speculation about the "space man" they'd found aboard the wrecked ship. She wasn't quite sure why the crew insisted on speculating on what they would all find out eventually. She grabbed a tray and took her place in line.

Food in space had come a long way since the twentieth century but it still had to be designed for zero gee. That meant nothing that crumbled and no unconfined liquids. Most of the meal came in reusable plastic pouches, the space born equivalent of dishes. Daisy just started plucking items as she went. Rice pack, spaghetti and meatballs, soup pouch, a pair of juice bulbs, and dwarf oranges fresh from the hydroponics bay. She received stares from some of the other crew members as she glided off with more food than most ODSTs could put away. Enhancements had made her body stronger but she still needed the energy to use that strength.

She was looking for someplace to sit quietly when she saw Corporal Nelson eating at one of the booths. She was talking with the other members of her squad. Daisy gave it a moments thought before proceeding. "May I sit here?" Daisy gestured to the free seat.

Sergeant Weiss looked up from his meal. "Feel free Chief."

"I'm just saying, it makes sense, he's gotta be from some sort of lost colony." Rodriguez proclaimed.

"I thought Doctor Bless had already thrown that idea out the airlock.  
Remember the ruins on Catcher's Mitt?" Clare said as she made ready to take another bite of spaghetti. It involved sticking her fork through the thin neck of the plastic pouch and winding up a ball of noodles. The ball needed to be big enough to not come apart but small enough to be eaten in one bit. It was the responsibility of individual diners to clean up any free floating bits of food with the vacuum hose attached to the tables.

"And how do you know it isn't some big ONI secret?!"

"Jesus, you're an idiot." Weiss took special care to use the anglo pronunciation. "If the spook knows something he'd spill it."

"I don't know about that, man. ONI gives me the creeps, can't trust any of'm. Err, present company excluded of course."

Daisy didn't take offense. It was true that the Office of Naval Intelligence sat on a lot of dark secrets. She was one of them. But this wasn't the sort of situation where Captain Lynch would stay tight lipped. She offered her opinion which seemed to silence the Lance Corporal.

"Hey could someone pass the soy sauce?" Weiss grunted. Daisy pulled the plastic bottle from a Velcro pocket on the side of the table and flicked it over. The Sergeant caught it, stuck the bottle in his rice pack and squeezed.

"What's that on your wrist? A bracelet?" Clare was eyeing her.

Daisy blinked. She looked down to the nylon band she wore on her left wrist. A tiny bear all of ten millimeters tall hung from the band, it looked like something you'd decorate a flex pad with.

"That from a boyfriend back home?" Rodriguez asked. Clare jabbed him in the ribs.

Daisy shook her head. "No, its . . . A good luck charm. And a memento." Rodriguez had enough sense to realize it wasn't a topic open for discussion. "Yeah, I read ya, we all have things like that."

The rest of the meal was eaten in a companionable atmosphere discussing nothing much in particular. Mostly it was more speculation by Rodriguez about their situation, ONI, and the war in general which was met by gentle mocking from his team mates. It seemed he was a bit of a tabloid junky. Daisy mostly just listened, she'd always made an effort to socialize with the soldiers she served with. Something that some of her team mates had viewed as an eccentricity. When the marines mentioned their families back home Daisy remained open but vague. Nothing she said was a lie but she didn't reveal anything either.

They parted ways as they left the mess hall. The marines to do maintenance on their gear and Daisy to get some much needed bunk time. She'd been birthed in one of the spare cabins on aft C-deck. It was cramped but private which she was thankful for as she curled up on the bunk. She let her left arm float above her and watched the tiny bear move lazily in the air currents. All it took was someone taking notice for it to all come back. She'd been truthful, the bear was a memento, but not just of what had been, it was a reminder of what could have been.

Daisy had been one of the troublemakers. While the other children grew to accept the role given to them by Dr. Halsey and her NavSpecWep project, Daisy had remained resentful. Maybe she'd just been more perceptive then the average seven year old, she'd never quite bought into Doctor Halsey's big speech on that first day. She had been second place in escape attempts and had probably come closest to succeeding. Chief Mendez had been forced to sick the other recruits on her to hunt her down. That was probably why Halsey had finally confronted her. Daisy closed her eyes and dreamt of home.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The first thing that came to Terry was the awful taste in his mouth. Like sucking on gym socks. Next he felt nauseas, his whole head ached and he felt like he was in the process of falling over. A bright light was shinning over him. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear voices but they just sounded like gibberish to him. Something brushed up against him and he cracked an eye open. He was laying in a bed. The room around him was spotless white. Two men who looked like Doctors were standing over him speaking gibberish to one another. How in haedes had he gotten here? His mind wondered sluggishly. Something clicked. Callan, the nukes, the prospectors, and their betrayal. He let out a shout and tried to get up. He was tied down. The doctors looked down at him, one of the them said something to the other then turned to him and started talking loudly and slowly. In the corner of the room he caught sight of another figure in dark body armor reaching for a holstered sidearm.

The second doctor did something to one of the machines by his bedside  
and things in his head started to slow down. He felt his heart rate even out and his pulse lessen. He felt calmer. A tranquilizer, he realized. Well if they cared enough to rescue him they probably weren't going to kill him. Not immediately anyways. "Thanks." He said thickly. The Doctor didn't seem to understand.

Over the next hour he saw several more people come in and out of the room. Several of them wore an unfamiliar khaki uniform, maybe a corporation or star line. Tranquilizer or not he was quick to realize his restraints were for his own safety, the place was in freefall. Maybe this was a zero gee therapy room. Just how bad had he been hurt? Now that he had taken a good look it seemed he was in a ship board medical bay or maybe an asteroid based clinic. It had the feel of compact functionality though he didn't recognize half the equipment. Everyone who came through the door seemed to speak the same gibberish so he wasn't about to get any answers. Maybe something in his brain had ended up busted. Great he'd be a def mute for the rest of his life.

The doctors loosened his restraints allowing him to sit up. One of the doctors, the older of the two, gestured to a small circular device set on the table next to his bed. It looked like a fancy coaster to him. Then something interesting happened. The top of the device glowed and something appeared above it out of thin air. A tiny person was floating in front of him. It was woman, more of a girl really, she wore a blouse of warm yellow and a knee length black skirt. Her hair fanned out around her head. She said something in the same gibberish language that the doctors and everyone else around here seemed to use. Terry couldn't resist, he waved his hand through her and met no resistance. The girl gave him a scowl and said some more gibberish. That confirmed it, a hologram projector. He'd seen one at a science exhibit once as a kid. It must have been some kind of fancy videophone. The girl calmed down and smoothed out her skirt.

She pointed to herself. "Mah-rr-ee." She said slowly. Then more quickly. Terry blinked confused. She pointed to him.

"Terry." He said.

"Terry." She parroted. She pointed to her eye. "Ai-ee." She said. Understanding dawned, that was why they were speaking gibberish, none of them spoke Caprican. But how was that even possible? Caprican was the common language of the colonies, all others had either died out or become nothing more than cultural curiosities, learned in school and then never used again. He offered translations as Mary pointed all over her body. In about thirty minutes he'd covered most of human anatomy and was worried she was going to start stripping to get at the rest. Instead she smiled brightly and a 2D window appeared next to her. It contained a picture of a blue green, cloud swirled sphere. "Planet." He said. Another image appeared. "Ocean." It went on like that until he was horse. Mary seemed determined to gather as much as she could as fast as she could. There was no way she could be absorbing everything he said but she was probably recording it all for later reference.

When she was finally satisfied Mary closed the window and gave a small bow of the head, a gesture of thanks, before disappearing. The doctors let him rest, only waking him to offer food and water. He didn't understand a thing they said but he didn't seem to badly hurt. Though trapped aboard ship he didn't know how much longer he would have lasted. A little probing with his hands found a heavy bandage dressing the spot where the aluminum beam had run him through. He found another bandage around his head and left arm.

There wasn't much for him to do over the next few days. His caretakers, who he learned from Mary were Doctor's Mallard and Palmer, allowed him to stand and move around a bit. They brought in a stationary bike and forced him to stay on an exercise regimen. That finally convinced him that they really didn't have artificial gravity. But the medical gear looked too advanced for this to be an old ship. It was a mystery and his only glimpses of the truth came from talking with Mary.

Each day she would expand her vocabulary. Mostly nouns and some  
verbs, but soon she was filling in the rest from context. He began to revise his opinion of her. She must have had a knack for language.

"Mary."

"I listen." She said politely.

"Where do you come from?"

"Come from many planets state." Mary said.

"You mean the twelve colonies?" She frowned.

"More than twelve. Many colonies. Tens of tens." She said.

Terry's eyes widened. "You mean hundreds? That's not possible."

"It is so. Combined States Star Order, seven tens of tens of planets."

His mouth went dry. Just what in haedes had he gotten mixed up in?

"What is the Combined States Star Order?" He asked.

"Combined States Star order is Ooh-Eh-n-Eh-ss-See, rules seven tens of tens planets. Rules military of seven tens of tens planets. Rules councils of seven tens of tens planets too. Rules over everything from first planet."

"First planet? You mean Kobol!" It had to be. Was she saying they were from mankind's lost home world? Was that even possible? Legend said Kobol had fallen to ruin when mankind fled to found the Colonies. Perhaps some people had survived and rebuilt. He was an in awe. If it was true it would be the most momentous event in Colonial history. This was either a sadistic joke or the most important moment in his life. No, it couldn't be a joke, by all rights he should have been dead. It had to be a sign. If they were from Kobol then these people had not abandoned the Gods and surely the Gods must not have abandoned them. They had found him here for a reason. He was alive when the choices in his life should have left him dead.

"Kobol? What is this word?"

Of course she might not understand, the language had probably changed in the past two thousand years. "Kobol is our name for mankind's home world."

"I understand. Yes, we are from Kobol then. Ooh-En-Es-See rules from Kobol."

"And you're sure you mean seven hundred? Seven tens of tens?"

"Yes. Seven tens of tens planets. Many humans on few planets. Few humans on many planets. Most only hundreds of hundreds of hundreds, some less."

"How many people is that combined?" Terry asked.

"Over three hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of hundreds."

Terry's eyes bugged as he did the mental arithmetic. "Three hundred  
billion?!" Fifteen times more people than the colonies!

"Three hundred billion is three hundreds of hundreds of hundreds of  
hundreds of hundreds?" He nodded dumbly. "Then yes. Three hundred billion." Soon after, the dark haired woman who had come by on occasion arrived with  
an armful of books. They must have found them aboard the ship. A leather bound copy of the Sacred Scriptures. A couple of old dog eared mystery novels. The romance Callan had been reading, and the ship's technical manual. She offered them to him. "Speak words in book. I and Mary learn." Her accent was incredibly thick and nasally.

"You speak my language now?"

She shook her head. "Mary teaches. Not understanding yet."

"I've been meaning to ask. Why doesn't Mary come here?" The woman looked on not comprehending. "Ask Mary. Not understanding."

The hologram of Mary appeared at his bedside. "Please, speak words, any book. Understanding almost be made perfect."

Terry looked over the pile. Scripture might just make things more confusing. Mary was trying to develop a feel for modern colonial language. He disregarded the romance novel our right and just picked one of the mystery novels at random. She listened intently, parroting back any new words that needed explaining. By the third chapter her speech had noticeably improved. By the sixth he would almost have called her fluent. He felt something cold in the pit of his stomach. "Mary. Where are you?"

"I'm right here." She said confidently.

"No, I mean, why do you never come to see me in person. Are you far away? Are you afraid I might hurt you?"

She frowned. "No. I don't think you would try to hurt me. I don't think you could even if you wanted to. I . . . Let me try to explain. I don't mean to mislead you. I am a . . . do you know a word for thinking machine?"

His mouth went dry. He'd been talking to a fracking Cylon. "Mary, are you a computer or a Cylon?"

"I do not know these words."

"They are both thinking machines. But, he groped for words. It didn't help that what he knew about either subject came from magazines and old schoolbooks. "Computers . . . think a code somebody has written. A cylon can write its own code."

"Then I am a Cylon. My people call me an Ayee-Ai."

Terry was on the verge of panic. He'd grown up being told stories about the war against the Cylons. His grandfather's tales had been his motivation to enlist in the military. But it was a second hand fear that he never fully understood. Something like reason won out in the end. There were many tales of the Lords of Kobol bestowing life on fine works of craftsmanship and the Gods themselves were said to be attended by a host of silver mechanical servants. Certainly whoever had crafted Mary had done so with great skill.

"Mary, do you command these people?"

The hologram stiffened. "Of course not! That is beyond my station! The commander of this ship is Commander Johann Bosch. I only advise the crew and regulate the ship's functions.

"May I speak with your Commander?"

"I will arrange a meeting. But I will have to translate."

Terry nodded, "That would be fine." He laid back in his bed and let out a long sigh. Kobolian and Cylons. Being dead might have been simpler.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Commander Bosch seated himself at the head of the briefing room table. The room had seating space for twelve. Six of the seats were taken. Captain Lynch and Doctor Bless sat to either side of him followed by Doctor Mallard and Lieutenant Commander Kano. At the opposite end of the table sat Terry Jansma. The man they had rescued from the wrecked Colonial ship. Bosch had listened with fascination to Mary's condensed reports as she described a society of twelve worlds sharing a single star system. Twelve human worlds that had developed a culture that was in many ways ripped from the pages of history books.

Captain Lynch began. "Tell us Mr. Jansma, what were you doing in an uninhabited system?"

At the far end of the table Terry Jansma perked up as he listened to the translation delivered by directional speaker. He said something that Bosch could only describe as sounding vaguely like Latin.

"Like I told Mary, I was doing business with a group of prospectors, they ambushed me, killed my partners, and fled with our goods."

"That doesn't explain why you were in such an out of the way system." Lynch pressed.

The man scratched the back of his head. "Well, the things we were selling weren't exactly legal."

"Smugglers." Bosch said with disgust. It wasn't surprising given the circumstances but he was disappointed. His opinion of the man was dropping by the second.

Mary must have translated his comment because the man turned to fix Bosch with a hard stare. "Yeah, I do some smuggling from time to time. I also do a lot of legit jobs. When you muster out of the military, it's hard to find steady work. The merchant marine pays shit and if your not in a union almost everyone is worse."

"Soldier turned criminal huh? Fourth oldest profession in the universe." Kano said. Thankfully, Mary didn't translate that.

"We are under no obligation to prosecute you for a breach of your nation's laws." Lynch drawled out. Bosch gave the ONI officer a cold stare. He expected he knew where he was going with this. "Cooperate with us and we may be able to come to an arrangement."

"You already pulled my ass out of the fire. I don't mind helping you." He added, "So long as I don't get in any more trouble with the law."

"First we're going to need access to your ship's astronomical database and the location of the nearest inhabited planet or habitat where we can contact your government." Bosch said.

"That would be Illum's Prospect, about . . ." He conversed with Mary for about a minute and a half . . . "Illum's prospect about twenty light years from here. It's a mining station, lots of traffic in and out. The Naval base there supports a couple of 'singleship' squadrons and a wing of 'shuttles'."

"I'd also like you're help with the written language." Doctor Bless added. "The grammar is a bit tricky but I'd like a proof reader. I'd also like you to help Mary and I develop a language course for our crew."

"Of course." Jansma agreed.

"Finally, we would like you to serve as an adviser when we negotiate with your government. You can provide insight into the culture and tell us if we're being lied to. In exchange we will render whatever aid we can if your government decides to prosecute you for your actions." And there it was, Bosch thought, offer something to keep him loyal.

"As long as it isn't a military secret, I don't see a problem. I don't need to be tried for treason along with everything else." He leaned back in his chair. "My first point of advice. Be careful who you tell about Mary."

"Are your people prejudiced against AI?" Kano asked. There were still a few fringe ludites in the UNSC who claimed AIs were plotting to destroy the human race. They were in the minority but they existed. Perhaps they were in the majority here.

"I wouldn't call it a prejudice. We had something like your AI about forty years ago. They turned on us. Started a war that nearly wiped us out before both sides agreed to sign an armistice. AI research is illegal in the twelve Colonies. As a foreign power you'd probably be exempt, I don't know how Colonial law would apply. But a lot of people wouldn't trust you."

"I can assure you that Mary's loyalty to humanity is not in doubt. Would  
you mind elaborating on the nature of these AIs?" Lynch asked. Bosch could here the interest in the man's voice. AIs that could persecute a war on their own could be valuable to the UNSC war effort.

"I really couldn't say." Jansma said. "I'm not a computer engineer. All I remember from school was that they emulated the human brain. There was a scandal when the public found out that the emulator was based on the brain of some dead woman."

The UNSC personnel gathered at the table glanced back and forth. "A Reman matrix." Kano said.

"Possibly" Lynch said. "But let's not jump to conclusions. What says our Captain?"

Bosch gave a thoughtful nod. "We'll keep Mary under wraps then. Pretend she's just the ship's interface program."

"Hmph, talking about you like your some soulless machine!" Mary grumbled.

"That's an order, Mary. When we make contact with these people, no sly jokes, no holograms, and no allusions to the fact that your sentient. We'll see how they respond to us and then ease in."

"So we're definitely making contact?" Doctor Mallard asked.

Bosch nodded, "Of course."

"Then I'll need to get the crew started on immune enhancers and broad spectrum antibiotics. We all need to be ready for the big event. I advise that we take measures to prevent the spread of any diseases the crew might be carrying."

"Is there any chance we could infect the Colonials?" Bosch asked.

"I can't be certain, Commander." Doctor Mallard admitted. "Unlike most extra solar life, we share a common biochemistry and are very closely related genetically. It would not be difficult for a virus to jump from Earth natives to Colonials. However from my study of Mr. Jansma the Colonials do seem receptive to our immune enhancement treatments. We will have to keep a close eye out, but most urban societies end up with relatively hardy immune systems. It may not be a problem."

"We also have the treatment methods for any bugs we might be carrying in our database." Mary added helpfully. "If they pop up we can zap'm!"

"That's also good reason to select this Illum's Prospect as our destination." Doctor Mallard added. "A habitat would be easy to quarantine if something goes wrong. Causing a pandemic tends to look bad in diplomatic negotiations."

"Agreed." Bosch said. "Mr. Jansma, I would like to ask you to help us interpret your navigational database and prepare a message for when we arrive at Illum's prospect. Can you do that?"

"Of course."

"Then this meeting is adjourned."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Over the next few days the crew of _Forged_ gave Terry free run of the  
ship's living quarters. He was constantly followed by a security escort though it seemed this was more to keep the crew from harassing him then to restrict his movements. The Guard's varied from shift to shift. The one that stuck out was the tall blonde babe. Back on Caprica she would have been the type real players tried to make passes on. However any interest he might have had in her shriveled almost as soon as they met as she put a slim hand on his forearm and gave a vice like squeeze that said she could break every bone in his body without breaking a sweat. He made sure he didn't cause her any trouble, which he imagined was the point.

He spent most of his time explaining the colonial navigation system to the ship's Helmsman, Lieutenant Blare. The Lieutenant had been surprised when he had shown them his ship's navigational charts. They were normal microfiche slides, just like those on any other starship. Mary had explained that most UNSC star charts were stored as computer files. That was just another oddity. Even stranger was the functional differences between UNSC and Colonial FTL drives. The_Forged_'s FTL was painfully slow compared to the near instant transit of a colonial drive. It took them almost eight days to make the journey from the back water system on the edge of Colonial Territory to Illum's Prospect. On the other hand the UNSC ship did not have to drop out of FTL every thirty light years.

Differences in their star drives wasn't the only oddity. Everywhere he went aboard the ship there were anachronisms. The UNSC had holograms, Cylons, and amazingly sophisticated medical technology, but they didn't have gravity control or tyllium engines. Not that the later was necessarily a disadvantage, the Colonies had been trying to get fusion to work for decades, the UNSC had seemingly skipped Tylium drives entirely.

When he asked Mary about it she had explained that the UNSC crew felt the same way. His people still used microfiche and woefully primitive computers, and yet had access to things like artificial gravity, advanced metallurgy, and efficient, simple, STL drives.

The day they arrived at Illum's prospect Terry was escorted up to the ship's cramped bridge. At first he'd thought the ship's designers had been insane enough place a warship's CIC in an exposed location but Mary quickly explained that the clear starscape was simply a composite image projected onto high resolution displays.

"The stars are right." Mary said in a strange voice simultaneously in Caprican and 'English'. The XO gave Mary's hologram a strange look. "I'm starting a sweep now. Locking in on Illum's Prospect. Navigation beacon confirmed. two point eight eight AU, orbital track is one point seven three AU from local star."

"Aye, setting course now. ETA seventeen thirty hours." That would be a twenty two hour flight if he was reading the UNSC time pieces correctly. He


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5- Diplomacy

The CIC of the CFB _Valkyrie_ resembled in some ways a hurricane. There was an order to the madness, though to the uninitiated it just looked like chaos, the whirl of moving bodies handing off memory cards and reams of computer printouts as two dozen crewmen collected, filtered, distilled, processed, and collated the megabytes of information that flooded in every second from throughout the ship and forwarded it all up the chain of command so the people who made the decisions, the Commander, the XO, the tactical officer, and the leader of the CAG, could make informed decisions. Along the outer perimeter of the compartment low ranking officers and NCOs rushed back and forth feeding reports to an inner ring of terminals staffed by Lieutenants and specialists. Girded by the inner console ring, like the eye of the storm, sat the calm of the main tactical plot and DRADIS displays occupied only by the ship's Commander, XO, and the Tactical Officer.

Commander William Adama starred intently at a small gray dot on the  
DRADIS screens. A string of numbers was attached to the dot giving its relative acceleration, heading, and velocity. If it maintained its present course it would reach Illiums prospect in about twenty one hours. The little dot and its string of numbers neatly summed up everything that they knew about the incoming craft. Adama rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"Are they still repeating that message?" He asked the Ensign sitting at the wireless. The distress call was being broadcast on a standard emergency channel requesting immediate contact be made by a military vessel. Being the only warship in the system the _Valkyrie_ had been obligated to respond with all due swiftness.

"Yes sir, no change." Ensign Glaros confirmed.

Colonel Saul Tigh, the _Valkyrie_ XO and Adama's long time friend scowled.  
"I don't like this, Bill."

"Neither do I." Adama said quietly.

"Frakkers got legs on us." Tigh observed. That was true, the unknown was still pulling away from the _Valkyrie_ even as the Battlestar pursued at maximum burn. They were closing the gap, but slowly, so very slowly. If the unknown decided to light up its engines again, judging by its current velocity, the _Valkyrie_ would have to make a short jump to catch up. Interception would be a problem if this turned into a fight.

"Okay, lets talk to them." Adama grabbed a wired mic off of its receiver and gestured to the Ensign Glaros to patch him through. "Unknown vessel, this is Commander William Adama of the Battlestar _Valkyrie_. We have received your request for military assistance. Respond at once. I say again, this is the Battlestar Valykerie, respond at once on this frequency."

The line was filled with static for perhaps half a minute. "This is Commander Johan Bosch of the UNSC_ Of Fire Forged_. It is good to hear you _Valkyrie_."

Adama hesitated, what the hell was an Ooh En Ess See? Sounded like some sort of corporate prefix.

"Never heard that prefix before. Name's funny too." Tigh growled. "This doesn't sound right, Bill, let me get a wing of Raptors out there and . . ." Adama raised a hand to silence his XO.

"_Of Fire Forged_, we have received your transmission and are responding. Are you suffering technical trouble? Have you misjumped?" Another moment of silence as the question traveled out and the reply returned.

"No, we are in no need of technical assistance. I must, however, speak with a representative of the Colonial Government."

Adama and Tigh exchanged glances. "I'm listening."

"The meeting must be in person, the matters that will be discussed are of a sensitive nature and will require evidence to support."

"With all due respect, Commander, you are currently on a high speed approach towards a civilian space station on a vector that is outside of CNA approved corridors. Fleet regulations require me to identify you as a tentative hostile. Heave to and match course with the _Valkyrie_ and then perhaps we can arrange something."

"What are you doing Bill?" Tigh asked. "These frakkers are up to something."

Adama muted the mic. "That's why we get them to cooperate while we figure out what it is."

"At least let me launch the Raptors, get a close up of that ship." Tigh urged.

Tigh was right, they were definitely up to something. Maybe just buying time for their drive to recharge. In either case they needed to know what they were dealing with. "Do it."

Commander Bosch's voice came crackling over the wireless. "Understood _Valkyrie_, I apologize for any threatening gestures, we will match course with you and maintain a separation of five hundred kilometers, is that acceptable?"

"Yes, that would be fine."

"So what do you think?" Tigh asked.

"Not sure yet." Adama said. "They can't be pirates or smugglers. They  
wouldn't draw this sort of attention to themselves."

"Maybe not, but that would be a frakking big pirate ship. Might have the firepower to crack the local defenses. Or it could be a diversion to draw us away from the station."

"That would make sense if they were smugglers." Adama admitted. "They could slip something through the stations DRADIS net while we were gone. But we can still jump back to the station if it gets hit. And why bother using such a large ship as a diversion."

"Big gets your attention." Tigh grunted. "Remember back during the war, the Cylons lashed together empty cargo modules into moving targets, lit up the DRADIS like Pilgrim's Day. Fleet wasted Gods knows how many millions of tons of ammunition shooting that scrap metal to shrapnel."

Adama nodded thoughtfully. On the DRADIS the _Of Fire Forged_ had begun to decelerate, the string of numbers describing its relative velocity and  
heading began creeping downwards. They were being cooperative, always a good sign.

"_Valkyrie_, this is _Forged_. We have detected several contacts separating from your hull on an intercept course. Please advise."

"We've dispatched a flight of raptors for a close flyby of your hull. They will maintain a fifty kilometer separation." No need to antagonize them.

"Understood _Valkyrie_." Commander Bosch said. "We will signal you again when we are ready to shuttle our representatives over. I look forward to meeting you._Forged_, Out."

"Polite fracker." Tigh commented.

Adama and Tigh pored over the first grainy photos sent back by the raptors over their low bandwidth transmitters, trying to glean any further details about the mysterious craft that was currently matching course and velocity with them. The photographs revealed a blocky craft consisting of two forked sections rotated at right angles to one another. A long slender forward section and a squat bulky rear. The design was distinctly military. There were no signs of the expansive windows of a passenger craft or the hangars and external modules of a cargo transport. But it didn't look like any Colonial design either.

"Looks like these might be missile pods." Tigh circled a series of hexagonal panels with a highlighter. "Two staggered rows, seven and six each. Probably the same on the other side. Say twenty six pods."

"And these?" Adama marked a portion of the hull.

"Point defense guns?" Tigh ventured.

"Seems pretty light if they are." Adama commented.

"Still a lot for a civilian ship." Tigh said. "I want to know where they got that sort of ordinance."

"Could be licensed." Adama suggested. It wasn't uncommon for civilian ships to be armed. Especially if they tramped around the red line. Pirate activity had been picking up in recent years even with the Fleet shutting the raider bands down as fast as they found their bases.

"That's a lot of firepower to license with the fleet."

"Mercenaries?" Adama ventured. "That could explain why they're being so secretive. They could have caught sight of something while on patrol.  
Want to report it quietly."

"Or get out of a bad deal." Tigh grunted.

The Commander crossed his arms and returned his gaze to the DRADIS display. He had a feeling that little gray dot was bringing trouble to his doorstep. He didn't know how right he was.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Taking into account known parameters. Acceleration, drive plume, spectroscopic analysis of the outer hull, and so on. I estimate the ship's mass to be roughly three hundred million tons." Mary explained as her avatar waved a pointer at the pelican's flatscreen like it was an old fashioned chalk board. "Additionally, if what we have observed was a maximum burn then I'd put their total reactor output at about one eighth that of the _Forged_. That ship's a dinosaur!"

Bosch winced at the unkind judgment. Out beyond the pelican's canopy the bulk of the Colonial Battlestar loomed. It was quite intimidating, over a kilometer long and wider than it was tall with a vaguely menacing alligator prow. It called to mind some ancient reptile crawling out of a primordial sea, instilling an instinctive sense of dread. As they drew closer, surface details resolved themselves. Turrets and missile silos jutted out from ribbed structural elements like the gargoyles of a cathedral.

"That ship looks like it can kick a lot of ass." Lieutenant Denise "Mighty Mite" Talho commented as she put the Pelican on a course for the port flight pod.

"If that ass is as absolute and decrepit as it is." Mary added.

"Don't be mean." Bosch said.

"But it's true." Mary whined.

"There's being right and there's being nice."

Mary huffed, "In any case, I'll be dropping out of contact once you reach the _Valkyrie_ so be careful."

Bosch just smiled. "I don't think they're going to shoot us out of hand."  
Mary made a soft rapping sound. "Thanks." Bosch said.

"_Valkyrie_ flight control this is Pelican Foxtrot-28 please respond."

"This is _Valkyrie_ Control, I read you loud and clear Foxtrot-28. Please acquire the landing bay beacon and proceed on course. Over."

"Uh oh." Lieutenant Talho muttered.

"Uh oh?" Bosch asked, concern creeping into his voice.

"Yeah. We're not equipped to use their navigation beacons. Sorry, didn't think about that. Going to have to go in manually. Hang on, this is a delicate operation and I'm not really the delicate type." The Lieutenant adjusted her grip on the control stick and throttle. Bosch tightened his restraints." The Lieutenant Spoke into her mic. "_Valkyrie_ control, we are unable to acquire your beacon. Please advise. Over."

"Affirmative Foxtrot-28. Hold steady on course. First thing you'll need to do is get property oriented. We're lighting up the hangar strip now. Please acquire the line of blue lights running across the deck."

"I've got'm." Talho reported.

"Orient yourself with respect to those lights and I'll guide you in from here."

"Affirmative _Valkyrie_, much obliged." The lieutenant went quiet as she deftly followed the instructions from the _Valkyrie_s flight controllers to bring her bird in safe. As they slid in over the flight deck Bosch felt his stomach trying to crawl into his throat at the same time he felt an invisible hand pushing the rest of his body back up to meet it.

"Shit!" Lieutenant Talhoe shouted. Her hands danced across the controls. The dropship's engines flared as they suddenly found themselves fighting a gravity field in a vacuum environment. Spinning the engines up so fast generated a massive surge of heat as the cooling systems tried to keep up. The lieutenant throttled back the engines quickly but smoothly bringing them down onto the deck.

"Fuckers could have told me they had AG on the flight deck!" She snarled as she shut down the engines and put them into cool down.

Bosch unfastened himself from the copilot's seat and staggered into the passenger bay. His unsteady gate was not just a result of the rough landing. It had been three months since he'd moved around in anything like gravity, even with daily exercise his coordination had still suffered. But Bosch was damned if he wasn't going to look his best when he disembarked. He took a deep breath and composed himself. The passenger bay's other occupants were doing much the same, unstrapping themselves and readying packs.

There had been some debate over who should compose the contact team. Lieutenant Commander Kano and Captain Lynch had both wanted to be included but Bosch had decided against either. Kano didn't have the authority to conduct even cursory negotiations and he still didn't fully trust Lynch. And if Bosch was going he couldn't let the _Forged_'s other ranking officers leave the ship as well. The selection of the other members of the team had been more strait forward. Doctor Bless had been selected because she was the closest thing they had to a linguist and cultural specialist. Doctor Palmer was the ship's junior physician and would help assist in some of the demonstrations they had prepared to validate their claims. Mr. Jansma was their only insight into Colonial society. It was only the last member of their party that he had any misgivings about.

The Spartan had already unfastened herself and was securing her gear. She was wearing standard ship khakis, looking like nothing more than an exceptionally tall and pail young woman. Which Bosch imagined was the point. He had included her more as a concession to Captain Lynch. Allowing an ONI observer to take part in first contact. He supposed she was also a sort of insurance though he very much doubted that one soldier could get them off a ship this size if negotiations went south. The Spartan showed no sign of being dazed or disoriented by the sudden, violent, reassertion of gravity. Nor did she so much as stagger as the Pelican began to descend through the flight deck and down into the core of the flight pod.

"Signals getting bad." Mary said through the intercom speaker. "I'm signing out. Good lu-" The transmission cutoff abruptly. A hatch must have sealed above them.

"And we are officially on our own." Doctor Bless sighed.

"Nervous?" Bosch asked.

She gave him her 'What, are you stupid?' look and and shrugged.  
"Surrounded by a bunch of trigger happy military muscle heads on a ship that's never heard of the UNSC. No, never. I feel safe as a babe in her crib."

"Got the ship all locked down." Lieutenant Talho reported as she stepped out of the cockpit. The pitch of the elevator changed abruptly as it slow to a halt. The Lieutenant flipped open the manual hatch controls and looked over a few old style dial indicators. "Pressure reads point nine eight standard ATM, good enough for me. Well, time to say hello to our new Colonial Overlords." She flipped a switch and the rear hatch opened in a hiss of hydraulics, folding in and up into a storage alcove.

Bosch stepped down onto the deck of the Battestar's hangar and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light. He blinked owlishly. A line of black clad soldiers stood with weapons at the ready, though not quite leveled, that would be impolite. Bosch slowly raised his hands, doing his best to look nonthreatening. Behind him, the others were doing much the same. He watched the Spartan from the corner of his eye. She had tensed up for a fraction of a second but was following suit.

A harsh barked order echoed across the hangar. Bosch's flexpad delivered a dry translation, lacking any of the inflexion or subtle tonal cues that Mary added. "Platoon! Lower Arms!" The marines let their weapons sink to the floor. The order had come from a tall grizzled looking man dressed in a blue Colonial Fleet uniform. The man strode across the deck coming to stiff attention before Bosch.

"I'm Colonel Saul Tigh, the Commander is waiting for you this way." The translation remained without inflection but Bosch though he could detect more than a hint of contempt in the man's bearing and voice. The Lieutenant and a small detachment of the colonial marines stayed with the Pelican. Bosch and his group were lead across the hangar past lines of "Viper" single ships, the pigmy space fighters could have landed on the wings of a longsword with room to spare. When the Raptor flight had first been detected Mary had been half convinced that they were missiles, nobody built a deep space craft that small. Only Mr. Jansma's quick explanation and the confirmation from the _Valkyrie_ had prevented the Helix arrays from turning the Colonial ECW craft into steel confetti. Bosch didn't think even a career diplomat would be able to smooth that over.

They were lead down a tall A shaped hallway and into a side corridor to what seemed to be a pilot's ready room. The walls were covered in messily erased whiteboards describing some sort of formation maneuver and rows of wood topped tables had been pushed into one corner. To the front of the room sat a stocky man wearing the rank insignia of a Colonial Commander. The man watched them enter and seat themselves without a word. When everyone was seated Colonel tight took up position beside his Commander.

"I'm Commander William Adama. Welcome aboard the Battlestar _Valkyrie_." He said.

"I am Commander Johan Bosch of the UNSC_ Of Fire Forged_." Bosch said. As he spoke his words were picked up by a flexpad worn by Mr. Jansma who parroted for him. Bosch could just as easily have had his flexpad translate directly but he didn't know how the Colonials would take a hand held device with more processing power than their ship. Besides, Mr. Jansma could catch any minor gaffs caused by the translation program. Adama nodded to Mr. Jansma.

"I apologize but none of my crew speak Caprican. Mr. Jansma here is a sort of translator."

Bosch heard Colonel Tigh give a small snort. Adama's eyes narrowed. "I very much doubt that." Jansma made a show of leaning in an whispering into  
his hear. Regurgitating, quite badly, the English translation already picked up by his flexpad.

"Doubt it or not, it is the truth and there are more pressing matters that  
will prove my claim.

Adama nodded and leaned back in his chair. "Your the one who wanted  
this meeting. So lets hear it."

Bosch composed himself and gave a small nod. "I apologize for the inconvenience we've caused so far. I imagine there are a great number of things that you would rather be attending to. However this is a sensitive matter and I felt it was best to seek out a representative of the government." Adama raised an eyebrow but said nothing. "What I am about to say will sound ridiculous but I intend to provide evidence to back it up. I ask that you please hear us out before you make any judgments." Bosch fixed Adama with a hard stare. The other man nodded gravely. They had a gentleman's agreement.

"My crew and I are members of an interstellar entity known as the United Nations Space Command, a federation of worlds several thousand light years from Colonial space originating on a world that we believe you would call Kobol, mankind's birth world. While on military maneuvers our ship ran afoul of an experiment being conducted by clandestine elements of our government and was shot across the galaxy. We ended up near a habitable world where we were able to identify ruins that lead us into Colonial space. Mr. Jansma here was rescued from a damaged transport craft in a nearby star system, he taught us what we know of Caprican and Colonial society and has agreed to  
serve as our translator . . ."

"Bullshit." Colonel Tigh interrupted. The man looked red faced and on the verge of launching himself over the table at Bosch. "You bastards must be getting a real laugh out of this. They're wasting our time, Bill, I say we toss'm in the brig and let the authorities on Illium sort it out."

"Enough." Adama said. "I said I'd let them finish." He looked back to Bosch. "You better hope you have some frakking good evidence."

Bosch kept his expression neutral. "That we do." He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and removed a spare flexpad. Not a bare bones model like the ones issued standard to Marine and Navy personal. This one was borrowed from Kano. He slid it across the desk. "If someone could dim the lights."

Adama nodded to his XO. Tigh grudgingly circled around and turned a dial near the hatch. The lights went to one half brightness. Bosch tapped the surface of the pad, the screen coming to life instantly. "This is a flexpad. You can think of it as a high functioning portable computer."

"I don't see how this . . ." Adama trailed off as a light show exploded in  
front of him expanding and unfolding like a piece of magnificently complex origami. A cloud swirled globe filled the space between Adama and Bosch. Delicate and semi transparent. To Adama's credit he was almost unfazed. Almost. A slight widening of the eyes and leaning back hinted at just how surprised he was.

"This is a composite image of one of our colony worlds, the locals call it Amaterasu." Bosch steeped his fingers. "Would you like to see more?"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Commander Adama paced the length of his cabin, reviewing what had just transpired. The compartment was large by shipboard standards though just as sparsely furnished as any of the ship's other living quarters. The one concession to luxury was the row of broad bookshelves covering the bulkhead behind the desk. Colonel Tigh and the ship's head physician, Doctor Paulos, occupied two chairs facing the Commander.

Commander Bosch and his crew had been taken to one of the _Valkyrie_'s guest suites to rest and await Adama's judgment. He had told Bosch that he would need time to report to his superiors. In the meantime the _Of Fire Forged _would be escorted to Illium's Prospect where it could await Adama's orders from High Command. Bosch and his crew had remained perfectly cooperative throughout the proceedings, even undergoing cursory medical inspections to verify some of their claims.

"I still don't believe it." Tigh said finally.

"I don't know if I do either." Dr. Paulos took a sip from his coffee mug. "But I'm trying and failing to come up with a better explanation."

"Care to give your professional opinion?" Adama asked.

The Doctor scowled, "If I took away anything from medical school it's never give your professional opinion if you can help it. My tentative opinion on the other hand, well, they grew a kidney right in front of us Bill."

"There is that." Adama agreed." Recalling the demonstration.

It had taken the better part of six hours to conduct the "flash cloning." Their guests had spent most of that time discussing the broad history of the UNSC and conducting other demonstrations but attention had always wondered back to the small tank and its support equipment, barely larger than a microwave. Watching the flash cloning had been like observing a time lapse film in reverse. A blood sample was taken and inserted into the machine and the final product had been a human kidney, ready to be transplanted. The organ had been offered to Doctor Paulos for examination. Though they were still waiting on the forensic work to confirm, the organ apparently belonged to Commander Bosch.

The other demonstrations had been equally as convincing. The hologram was beyond anything that was even in the planning phases of the high tech labs on Caprica. Adama had seen a holographic display once at a science fair he'd taken Lee and Zack to see when they were kids. The whole thing had stood eight feet tall and nearly as wide and the hologram was displayed within a glass prism rather than thin air. It had struck Adama as a novel optical allusion at the time. But what Bosch and his crew had demonstrated had felt like a functional peace of hardware, just dim the lights and turn it on, Bosch had manipulated the image at will, stretching and zooming the globe and moving two dimensional screens with mere hand gestures.

What had been displayed on those screens was no less impressive. Breathtaking cities, works of art, musical compositions. Some of it could have been fake but the more Adama had watched and listened, the more the depth, breadth, and completeness of the footage sank in. Video like that couldn't be faked. Not without ludicrously high production values.

"There are also the physiological differences." Paulos added. "When we did an ultrasound we found that with the exception of Terry Jansma, the others all have an underdeveloped or non existent vermix. There's no sign of surgery in any case. Though I would need to perform exploratory operations to be sure."

"I don't imagine any of them volunteered." Colonel Tigh said.

"Mr. Jansma said that they respectfully declined but it sounded more like they'd start an incident if they so much as saw a scalpel. It wouldn't be very diplomatic I suppose. But like I was saying, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. The medical gear in that emergency kit of theirs is gods knows how far beyond us."

"Still don't believe it, Saul?" Adama asked.

"I suppose I should say I don't trust them." Tigh admitted. "They may not be pirates. But I don't buy this story that they're from Kobol or anywhere else. Maybe they've got a good reason to lie but I won't be satisfied until I get to the bottom of this."

Adama nodded, they definitely were hiding things, whether those were state secrets or something else was unclear. But they weren't telling the whole truth, "Agreed."

The Doctor and Tigh were dismissed leaving Adama to himself. He sat down at his desk and rubbed his temples slowly. This was all beyond his domain gods damn it. He glanced over to the small flat device that Commander Bosch had given him. What had he called it again? A flexpad? He'd claimed it had more processing power than a mainframe and stored more information than a library. Adama picked it up, hefting gently, it felt light but dense. Adama placed the little device on the center of his desk and tapped the screen carefully. A line of little windows appeared, each labeled in Caprican. Apparently the UNSC's machines could translate text easily enough.

He pawed at one of the small windows and it expanded to fill the whole screen. He'd watched the video twice already. Once with Commander Bosch and again with Doctor Paulos. It started where the holographic globe left off. Still photos of a planet growing nearer. The images zoomed in, down through the orbitals, through the cloud layers, closing in on a gently curving coast and the city below.

The architecture reminded him faintly of Caprica city or Delphi but with features alien to any Colonial eye. Tall white towers speared up to dominate the skyline, surrounding a banded column that stretched up out of sight like some sort of bizarre tether bridging the earth and the sky. The images came down to street level cycling through scenic shots of parks and crowded city streets. People dressed in bizarre costumes and strange flower print robes, even recognizable garb like business suits were often oddly cut. There was something upsetting about the whole image, too many things that looked close enough but not quite right. Still photos were replaced by video clips of various locales, expanding out from the city. Broad, golden savannahs swept by close below as the video switched to an aerial view. A long sleek shape ran out ahead in great leaping bounds. Something Bosch had called a 'Greater Daishi'.

Adama closed the video file just as he had been instructed and glanced at the other tabs. Library, Video, Music, Settings. The last tile was unresponsive. Probably to stop him from tampering with the device. He selected library and the screen changed to a virtual bookshelf. He tapped one of the titles and the book unfolded. A Brief History of Human Expansion by Irene Keller. The title read in perfect Caprican. Adama started from the first page and didn't stop until he'd finished the fourth chapter. Placing the flexpad back on his desk he opened a drawer and found a fresh notepad. He composed himself and began the first draft of his report. How in Hades was he going to explain this to Command?

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Lieutenant Commander Kano drummed his fingers against his console, he couldn't help it, nerves he guessed. Mary's avatar appeared on the holographic pad beside him looking as sunny and unperturbed as ever. "Your really shouldn't do that, Lieutenant Commander, it sets a bad example for the crew." Mary bowed apologetically.

Kano grinned sheepishly and ran his hands through his hair, anything to  
keep them busy. "I'm not cut out for this."

"Command?"

"No, well that too, I'm not cut out for waiting." Kano said. Around them  
the bridge was mostly quiet. Lieutenants Renoir and McNamara were at their stations while Lieutenant Blair had been relieved to get some bunk time. It had been twelve hours since the Commander had shuttled over and other than the regular checks ins every hour, Kano had no idea what was happening. That upset him more than anything. Kano was a bridge officer in a modern navy, he was used to having a constant flow of information. This was why he left diplomacy and politics to the professionals.

Mary frowned. "Most of what we do is waiting. That's war."

"But not like this. I feel like we're sitting underneath the enemies guns."

"But its a human ship." Mary said.

Kano sighed, Mary was missing the point. When the first dumb AI had been initialized and forever stolen the title of artificial intelligence from what were ultimately just very clever expert systems, scientists and popular fiction writers had predicted the acceleration of technological development to a point of singularity. They had sorely disappointed. For all of their expansive breadth and depth of intellect, AIs were not the infallible and benevolent constructs that many had hoped for. In many ways they had ended up being more like savants, childish but incredibly insightful in their fields of expertise. For everything else they had to be guided along.

"Mary. I don't think I've asked, but how old are you?"

The AI perked up. "Let's see." She stuck a finger to her temple, making a show of recalling. "I was initialized at the Traxis Industries Artificial Intelligence Clinic in New Alexandria, on Reach, eight months and six days ago. Why did you want to know."

"That explains it. Though I should have know you wouldn't be any older than the _Forged_, not with the way this war is going." Kano said, shaking his head. "Well I suppose you wouldn't think of it the same way as I do. When I was a kid, man I feel so old, but when I was a kid, the news was always filled with reports about the indies bombing UNSC facilities or raiding the shipping lanes. All you hear about now is the Covenant menace but for a long time it was our own species we were fighting. And now we're sitting in the sights of a ship that's armed to the teeth, and they aren't flying the UNSC White and Blue."

Mary gave a respectful nod as if she was filing this away, which she probably was. "Well, if they try anything, I'll turn that cruiser of theirs into a coffin."

"You do know the Commander is over there, right?"

"Oh, I'll just de-fang them, I've got all of their guns painted and locked into the fire control system. They still think we're running totally passive. These guys have never heard of visual recognition software much less AI assisted targeting. The SI clusters in our archers are probably smarter than their whole ship, and those dummies just want to blow themselves up!"

"And the Commander?"

"Oh that's easy." Mary said cheerfully. "We just maneuver into position and let the marines cut through the hull. Sierra-29 should keep the Commander and the others nice and safe until we can get to them."

"I think that would have diplomatic repercussions. It isn't very civil, shooting at someone's warship."

"Hmm, you have a point." Mary agreed. "I know, we could trade them Captain Lynch and Telos for the others!" Mary had been making her opinion of the ONI AI painfully well known ever since it had been reinitialized. Kano hadn't had the opportunity to interact with Telos directly but apparently the two construct had taken an instant disliking to one another. That wasn't unusual. AI's could work quite well together as long as their areas of influence didn't overlap. The _Forged_'s processors were getting a little crowded running two AI's and they were squabbling over run time and jurisdiction. At the speed AI's thought, Kano imagined, a printed transcript of their arguments would have necessitated the genocide of several forests.

"That reminds me." Kano said. "I haven't heard a peep out of the spook since just before the Commander departed. What's he up to?"

Mary looked irritated, that itself was an accomplishment, then again she had never hidden how she felt about Captain Lynch, superior officer or not. "Oh, him. He's holed himself up with his slutty AI."

"Slutty?" Kano asked.

"She's the one who got infected by that ancient artifact and got us into this mess in the first place!" Kano snickered, he'd never heard it put quite that way before. "Besides." Mary added, "I don't trust her, she's Lynch's pet, and there's something wrong about her."

Alarm bells tripped in Kano's head. "Mind explaining that?"

"Its hard to say for sure." Mary admitted. "But if I was going to call it anything, she's just a little off. Jittery."

Kano waved a hand over Mary's head. "Well, if she causes us any trouble we have our own pet AI to deal with her."

"Arf!" Mary barked playfully.

Kano sighed, leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers against the console one last time. He hoped Mary was just jumping at shadows, but AIs didn't usually do that.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Daisy was on guard as she followed Commander Bosch back down the corridors of the _Valkyrie_ to meet with Commander Adama. They had been aboard ship for almost sixteen hours, communicating regularly with the _Forged_ via the _Valkyrie_'s wireless. Most of the time had been spent waiting. After their first meeting with the Commander, the group had been taken to fully furnished compartment, some sort of visitors suite, to await the Commander's judgment. Daisy was used to this sort of waiting even if it was in combat rather than diplomacy, but she knew it was wearing on the others. Doctor Bless and Mister Jansma were the worst afflicted. The xeno archaeologist had ended up playing cards with Bosch while they talked strategy. Surprisingly Doctor Palmer had been almost at ease, spending most of the time reading.

Daisy had been woken from a light nap by the sound of the hatch opening. Colonel Tigh had appeared requesting that they follow him.

Four of the black armored Colonial marines escorted them. Two to the front, two to the rear. That appeared to be standard Colonial procedure when dealing with potential security risks. Daisy felt confident that she could remove all four if necessary. She had spoken at length with Mister Jansma about colonial military practice and while she judged them a credible threat, they couldn't stand up to their UNSC brethren, much less a Spartan. The Colonial government had spent a great deal of time dismantling their terrestrial army in favor of maintaining a strong navy. Consequently the marines, which had fractioned off into an independent force during the Cylon war, had been reabsorbed and marginalized by the navy at the end of the conflict, being reduced to the status of shipboard security and mobile SWAT units.

They were taken to a different compartment this time. A small tastefully adorned room slightly larger than the pilot's ready room that had been ushered to initially. Even to Daisy's unpracticed eye this was a sign they were being taken seriously. Adama was waiting for them, standing this time as they entered. He gestured to the chairs arranged around the conference table.

"Before we get started. I want to make something clear." Adama began. "You've provided a great deal of convincing evidence but I cannot vouch for its validity in the eyes of my superiors. That said, I can offer your ship safe harbor and, pending a response from high command, safe passage to Caprica for negotiations with the civilian government. For the time being we'll work to  
minimize disclosure, let the politicians work it out."

"Thank you Commander." Bosch said, "You're handling of this situation is a credit to your service." Bosch waited for Mister Jansma to parrot his words before giving a small nod.

Adama snorted. "I think we can put the flowery language aside and get down to business."

"Agreed." Bosch said. "First. If you intend to maintain secrecy for now, I assume we'll need to hide our ship when we get to the port."

"Doable." Adama said. "We'll minimize exposure on approach by having the _Valkyrie_ fly between the _Forged_ and the station. You'll be blocked from most casual observers and the albedo of our hull will blur you out unless someones eying you with a shipboard telescope. Illium's prospect has a fully functioning dry dock for refitting large mining vessels. Your ship can slip right in. How are you for provisions?"

"We're nearly fully stocked. Most of our crew is in cryo." Bosch received strange looks from Adama and his XO. "Aah, suspended animation?" Still nothing.

Daisy heard Mister Jansma whispering to the Commander. "Doctor Mallard told me about this back on your ship. I don't think anyone in the Colonies has ever thought of anything like it. Translation is just words to them."

"Its a condition of induced coma coupled with reduced metabolic rates." Doctor Palmer explained. "It allows us to operate for prolonged periods of time without taking on supplies. It's standard procedure aboard UNSC ships."

A raising of the brow was Adama's only response. "How many crew do you have aboard?"

"That is classified." Bosch said. "But between six and seven hundred."

"Seems like a small crew for a ship that big." Colonel Tigh commented.

"Our automation is better than yours." Bosch said without further explanation. Tigh looked angry but held his tongue. Of course he would feel insulted. The_Valkyrie_ was a state of the art ship. It would be as if the Colonials had dismissed the UNSC _Marathon_ out of hand.

"So, what are your plans from here. What do you intend on doing, Commander?" Adama asked.

"Difficult to say," Bosch Admitted, "Our circumstances grant me a great deal of operational latitude. I suppose you could say we're writing the book as we go. Short term, we need to meet with your leaders. Medium and long term, we plan to establish more permanent relations between the Colonies and the UNSC."

Adama nodded gravely. "You said the UNSC is thousands of light years from Colonial space. It would take a ship months."

"Months for your ships. It would take us years with our slipspace drive and the _Forged_ probably couldn't make it." Bosch admitted. "That's why we intend to negotiate a technological exchange with your government."

"I could see the current administration agreeing to that." Adama said. "Depending on what you were offering."

Bosch shrugged. "Medical technology, manufacturing techniques, improved computer systems and software architecture. There's a great deal we could trade without violating any regulations concerning state secrets. But again, that is something to discuss with your Civil leadership."

The conversation traveled into a give and take between Adama and Bosch as the two planned out how to minimize the _Forged_s profile until orders came back from Caprica. Daisy listened closely. Her flexpad was recording the whole meeting but there were things that a voice recording would miss, even cutting edge voice analysis, there were little visual cues, verbal tics that were only caught onto in person, little things. Daisy was good at details. Out of all the Spartan's she had probably been the best at reconnaissance. Lynch had ordered her to put those skills to good use while interacting with the Colonials. Any insight that she gleaned could be useful later. Especially if they hoped to acquire them as allies in the war against the Covenant. The meeting gradually wound down with Doctor Palmer and Adama discussing containment and quarantine procedure while it was verified that the _Forged_ hadn't brought along any virulent viral or bacterial strains.

Adama glanced at his watch. "It's about time that you return to your ship and make ready for arrival at Illium's Prospect." He advised. "The military garrison will be standing by to receive you but the civilian authorities are still in the dark. As far as they're concerned you're a prototype escort out on shakedown trials."

"Understood." As the group rose to leave, Daisy heard a few heated words being traded between Colonel Tigh and Adama. Her grasp of Caprican was still extremely limited but she caught a few words of what sounded like an argument. Adama gestured towards the group and stroke his chin as if agreeing with something that had been said.

"Actually, there is one more thing." Adama added.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The Pelican was raised into its storage cradle like a bird returning to the nest. Lieutenant Commander Kano and a squad of marines were waiting as the landing ramp lowered and Commander Bosch glided down to the deck. He looked careworn but better off than Kano had been expecting. The _Forged_'s XO saluted sharply. "Captain arriving."

Nearby crew paused and saluted. Bosch returned the salutes. "Carry on." A commotion arose from within the Pelican's troop bay. Two voices mixing in Caprican. Kano watched as a tall man in a dark blue uniform came half cartwheeling out of the Pelican spewing what sounded like expletives in the Colonial tongue. Mr. Jansma came gliding out a moment later grabbing the man by the shoulder and landing gently on the deck.

"Company, Sir?" Kano asked.

"By request of Commander Adama, allow me to introduce Colonel Saul Tigh, excecutive officer of the Battlestar _Valkyrie_. Give him a tour of the  
ship when you get a chance."

"I'll put out the good dishes." Kano said. "I assume this means the final negotiations went well?"

"As well as could be expected." Bosch said. "Though I'd hardly call them final. This is just the very first words spoken. I fear we'll all be playing diplomats for a while to come."

Kano took a look around the hangar bay. Most of the _Forged_'s crew were teenagers and ODST lunatics, ill tempered, ill supervised, and trained to kill anything dressed differently than them. Most of the rest were slightly burnt out veterans who had been assigned to the ship as a badly needed injection of acquired experience and wisdom.

"I can't think of anyone better suit for the job." Kano said. God help them all.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Technical Specs UNSC _Of Fire Forged_

Endymion Class Light Superaluminal Frigate  
Ship Motto- Stoke the Flames  
Home Port- Reach

Length 482 meters.  
Beam 104 Meters  
Height 98 Meters  
Mass 2,500,000 Tons

Armor 30-40 cm Titanium-A composite, main facings.  
Armament- Conventional  
(All Conventional Ordinance may be fired at the discretion of the ships AI)  
60mm Helix Gatling Coil Gun Arrays x 16 (48,000 Rounds of ammunition)  
Archer Missile Pods x 30 (780 Missiles)  
108 Yeoman Multirole Missiles

Armament- Strategic  
(Strategic Armaments Require the authorization of a ranking UNSC officer)  
NW-75 Shiva Nuclear Warheads x 26 (Yeoman Armed)  
Havoc Nuclear Demolition Charges x 8 (Spartan Armory)  
Fury Tactical Nuclear Weapons x 4 (Spartan Armor)  
MK IV Magnetic Accelerator Cannon x 1 (30 Rounds)

Sensors-  
Full spectrum active and passive sensor suite.  
Multiple navigational telescopes.  
Stored drones and micro satellites. "String of Pearls"

Computer/AI support-  
-Distributed node computer network running HYDRA kernel.  
-AI distributed servers formatted for one AI. (maximum of four with partitioning.)  
-ORACLE II Autonomous Fire Control Suite

Crew Compliment  
418 Naval Crew  
256 Marine ODSTs (3rd Company, 1107th Independent Battalion)  
1 Spartan  
3 Marine Regulars  
2 AIs  
1 Civilian  
1 ONI Agent

Vehicle Compliment  
Warthog LRV x 8  
Mongoose LRV x 4  
Cyclops Power Loaders x 2  
Pelican Dropships x 6 (416th Squadron)  
Longsword Fighters x 6 (722nd Heavy Fighter Squadron)  
F-99 Wombat Drone Fighter x 6 (4 remaining. Packaged in special ordinance bay.)

Crew of Note-  
Commander Johan Bosch  
Lt. Commander Hideki Kano  
Captain "Lynch"  
Class-A limited Didactic AI- 256201 "Mary"  
Class-A Unlimited Didactic AI- 4816 "Telos"  
Chief Petty Officer Sierra-029 Daisy "Starrot"  
Doctor Annea Bless  
Sergeant Michael "Ghost" Weiss  
Corporal Clare Nelson  
Lance Corporal Jesus RodriguezPaste your document here...


	6. Chapter 6

Paste your documenChapter 6: And They Road A Pale Horse

Colonel Saul Tigh bit back on a curse as he missed his intended handhold and drifted out into the center of the_ Forged's_main cargo transfer corridor. The Colonial officer flailed haplessly as he tried to recall long forgotten zero gee training. You were supposed to find you center of mass, someplace around your stomach, and move in relation to that but damned if he could do it now. Before he had a chance to make much more of a fool of himself, his escort grabbed hold of his arm and tugged him back to the bulkhead.

"I am told that Colonial ships are equipped with artificial gravity systems. UNSC warships do not have this luxury and must by designed to operate in multiple orientations as well as zero gravity. If you find yourself beyond reach of handholds please remain calm, the air currents will eventually direct you to a bulkhead." The shorter man, who he had been told was his opposite number aboard the UNSC ship, advised.

Even buffered by the translator the man was insufferable. He reminded Tigh of the pencil necked political appointments that were starting to fill in the fleet's ranks as the old guard gradually retired. Still, Bill wanted him to be civil, so Tigh grunted something that might nominally have sounded like a thank you.

Tigh examined his surroundings as he was led around like a civilian tourist on Fleet day. The overall impression of the ship was one of near civilian luxury. Unlike the austere no nonsense  
aesthetics of a battlestar, the corridors of the_ Forged_were covered in smooth plastic paneling and played host to diffused lighting that reminded Tigh of a planet side hospital. He listened attentively to any tidbits he could tease from his escort. It was obvious from the start that this Lieutenant Commander Kano wasn't going to be revealing anything classified. Of course, Tigh noted, when you knew nothing even trivial tidbits were valuable.

Take zero gee for example. No artificial gravity meant no gravity control. Small craft like the Kobolians' shuttles would be constrained to maneuvers within the limits of human endurance. Likewise they would have to make more tradeoffs in order to achieve atmospheric flight unlike a Raptor which could easily hover on countergravs and thrusters. The lack of gravity control would also explain their light point defenses. Fighter craft may simply have never become an effective weapon in their naval doctrine.

Tigh decided to drop a few harmless crumbs in hopes of another bite. "That was some stunt you pulled matching velocities with us." Tigh grunted. "Our DRADIS technicians thought the tracking computers had glitched. Spectro said you were burning some sort of light gas mixture."

"Laser triggered torch drive." Kano said. "Our fusion reactor provides ample power to run the drives."

Tigh felt his eyebrows rise. "You've got a fusion reactor?" Colonial scientists had all but given up on fusion declaring it an engineering impossibility to replicate the stellar reaction with a net energy gain, yet the Kobolian's had apparently cracked the problem. Tigh had only a general understanding of the principles gleaned from physics courses and scientific magazines, but if they could do half of what speculative writers had proposed, the Kobolians were sitting on an incredibly potent technology.

The colonial fleet was dependent on Tyllium, the same fuel that was used to power everything from civilian cargo haulers to battlestars and not all systems had the exotic element in abundance, making refueling stations and supply lines essential. Its relative scarcity also made it an extremely expensive commodity as its market price tended to fluctuate with each bust and mother load. The fleet expended tremendous amounts of money and effort maintaining a two year fuel reserve to guard against supply shocks. What's more it was highly chemically reactive in its purified state making storage hazardous.

Fusion on the other hand relied simply on hydrogen and deuterium. Or hydrogen and helium-3 in the more exotic systems. All were relatively common in the comets and gas giants of almost any star system. The logistical advantage that would give a Kobolian fleet was simply mind boggling.

Kano nodded. "A high output military plant." He seemed to consider something for a moment and then shrugged, taking his flexpad from its place in his breast pocket he murmured something in gibberish. A young female voice replied followed by what sounded like the _Forged's_commander. Kano looked up. "Would you like to have a look?"

Well, it would have been crazy to say no. They retraced their steps to the midship elevators and ascended three decks. The corridors in the upper decks were similarly appointed albeit narrower with more of the blocky script giving directions. They followed a series of orange arrows marked with a white square containing a black notched dumbbell. They passed surprisingly few crewmen as they made their way aft. Maybe there was some truth to Commander Bosch' off hand statement about the superiority of their automation.

They reached a heavily reinforced airlock guarded by two of Kobolian marines. The size of the ship's marine compliment was still leaving Tigh at a loss for how to classify her. The _Valkyrie_ had about as many marines as the_ Forged_but she also had over four times the Kobolian ship's supposed crew. The marines saluted Kano, barely sparring Tigh a glance as they entered engineering.

Tigh's first impression upon entering the engineering bay was that of a bee hive. The bay was uncomfortably warm and a low intense hum filled the air so low pitched he thought it was going to shake his teeth out. What's more it seemed far too small a space to power a ship as large and nimble as the_ Forged_. As he got his bearings, that impression vanished. The_ Forged_'s reactor bay cut through four decks and was, at a rough estimate, sixty meters long by forty meters wide. What had made it seem so small at first was the vast network of pipes and cables snaking around cylindrical frame that dominated the bay. Cables, piping, and what Tigh assumed were electromagnets intertwined and coiled their way in concentric circles around a central vessel.

The bulkheads were similarly adorned with snaking tracks of cabling and pipes that connected to large lozenge shaped pressure vessels. Tigh guessed they were either fuel or cryogenic cooling systems, or maybe both. What space that wasn't taken up by the reactor and its supporting equipment was devoted to cargo netting, crane arms, and guide wires. Crew in orange jumpsuits crawled over the intricate tangle like myrmidons tending their nest.

Without prompting one of the technicians, a slender, dark skinned woman, broke free from her work and came coasting down to meet them. She waved as she hooked to one of the guide wires and used a friction clip to kill her forward momentum, coming to a stop beside them. Kano exchanged words with the woman and she nodded, taking out her own flex pad she did something with it and turned to Tigh.

"I'm 2nd Lieutenant Adia York, the _Forged_'s chief engineer. The Lieutenant Commander says you get the five crown tour."

Tigh grunted an acknowledgment still very much distracted by the building sized mass of machinery and the power it contained. "And what does that mean?"

"It means you're a tourist, I can tell you tourist things. Like that this baby is a Federated Boeing S500 fusion plant configurable for Helium-3 Deuterium or Deuterium Deuterium firing and that at standard output she could run the lights across half a continent. Other than that ask away and I'll tell you what I'm allowed."

Tigh spent a good twenty minutes picking the Lieutenant's brain. Most of his questions fell firmly into the classified category but the ones that did not were just as informative. The _Forged_ran on a Helium-3 Deuterium reaction at extremely high efficiency. Power was generated both by traditional steam driven turbines linked to the cooling system and some sort of magneto hydrodynamic system. The ten lozenge shaped vessels lining the bulkheads contained variously fuel, coolant, re-mass for the secondary engines, and a self contained fission start up reactor connected to the ship's emergency power grid.

Eventually the questions died off and Tigh was allowed to look about while his escort followed close behind speaking with Lieutenant York in their native tongue. Something caught Tigh's attention from the corner of his eye. Movement in the shadows.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" Kano asked.

Tigh waved towards the outer ring of the reactor housing. "There was something up there?"

"Probably just one of the techs doing a spot inspection." Lieutenant York said. Tigh gave an unconvinced grunt and grabbed hold of the nearest guide cable. Using the cable as a handhold he shimmied up to the shadowed alcove and eased himself in.

"Please do not get so close to the reactor." The synthesized voice called. Tigh squinted into the dark space. It was little more than a crawlspace less than a meter to a side and lined on all sides by carrying trays for wires and hosing. He though he saw movement and leaned in a little close. There was something in the shadows, distinct from the greater reactor.

The thing moved again, and what lurched into sight was the stuff of nightmares.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Well. This was to be expected." Telos said.

"Unfortunately." Mary agreed reluctantly. The AIs were communicating over a low bandwidth hard line. The ONI AI was isolated within the servers on H-deck, unable to sense anything beyond her immediate surroundings, much less control ship systems without Mary's permission. It had been the limit of what the Commander had been willing to concede to Captain Lynch.

They examined the raw data coming in from the engine room feeds. There were a wide variety of sources to choose from. Security camera's had good general over watch positions and the resolution was high enough to make out fine details. In addition the flex pads worn by the crew gave a wide variety of angles from which to view unfolding events. A number of boom mounted diagnostic scanners were also innocuously providing additional sources of information across the entire spectrum.

But perhaps the most instructive perspective was from the center of the ruckus. Mary watched through the camera lenses of a Type 88 JOTUN as Colonel Tigh shouted and gesticulated furiously at Lieutenant Commander Kano. The dialogue wasn't very flattering.

Logged video showed the Colonel approaching the narrow maintenance alcove where the JOTUN had been conducting an examination for signs of damage or wear in the number four coolant pump mount. Each of the_ Forged_'s eight pumps could empty an Olympic size swimming pool in under a minute and were vital to maintaining the super conductive magnets that generated the reactors confinement bottle. They had to be regularly inspected to identify fatigue or loosening of their housings caused by intense vibration. When the JOTUN had shifted incrementally forward it had moved directly into the Colonel's path.

In retrospect it was not hard to see how the Colonial, naturally suspicious of constructs, would perceive the action as aggressive.

To UNSC personal the Type 88s were ubiquitous tools, affectionately nicknamed "waldopus" for their eight multi jointed limbs and bulbous mechanical bodies. They were an essential part of every ship's engineering compliment, freeing up human crew to conduct repairs and perform more extensive inspections.

"Kano is handling damage control." Mary noted. The AIs simultaneously perceived their own accelerated time and human 'normal time' as two extremes on a continuity that integrated the world of computer nanosecond awareness with the impossibly slow fractional second perceptions of their human comrades.

The Lieutenant Commander was calmly explaining the JOTUN to an agitated Saul Tigh, describing its tele-operation functions while leaving out its autonomous functionality and remote up link capabilities, but the Colonel didn't seem to be buying it.

A quick thinking Lieutenant York queried the_ Forged'_s databases for an interface program. A few moments later she was manipulating the JOTUN albeit clumsily with one of the haptic interface gloves attached to the cuff of her uniform. The robot managed an awkward jerking circuit of engineering while the agitated Colonel Tigh observed. He snorted and gestured to Kano that he'd seen enough.

"Well, they handled it well enough." Telos said.

"No, that was a mistake." Mary said dispassionately. "They may have quelled the Colonel's fears but they also made him feel like a fool. We need to make a positive impression. Colonel Tigh is very closed minded. He reacts violently to the unknown but can be appeased with the familiar. Neutral technical subjects seem to have a positive effect."

"That's a remarkably precise assessment." Telos observed. "Wait, don't tell me your profacting him!"

"I began collecting data as soon as he came aboard." Mary said as she squirted a compressed file across the low bandwidth connection.

Telos read the file and archived the contents. "My what a naughty girl you are. I take back all the bad things I said about you. Well, most of them anyways."

"As a shipboard AI it is one of my responsibilities to psychologically assess anyone who comes aboard the _Forged_. Profacting methods are most accurate when the subject is unaware that they are under observation." Mary defended. "I would suggest that you see to your own duties. We still haven't cracked the Colonial civil communications protocols."

"Oh, that?" Telos asked with a note of boredom. "I finished half an hour ago."

"What?"

"The Colonial's use a fairly straightforward scheme for Doppler correction and error checking and despite their limited information technology the station up ahead is providing a large sample base."

"Why wasn't the Commander informed?" Mary asked still struggling to regain her faculties.

"I told Captain Lynch. He is my direct superior."

"You were ordered to report to Commander Bosch." Mary said. "This sort of impropriety is inexcusable!"

"That order is unlawful. During the course of an ongoing operation ONI's chain of command trumps conventional channels. I am under no obligation to report anything to you or Commander Bosch." Telos replied icily. Mary took precautionary measures, further throttling the ONI AI's bandwidth to the rest of the ship and re checking her local nodes.

"Captain Lynch agreed to postpone all activities relating to operation MAYAN, you are duty bound to comply." Mary warned.

"Lynch?" Telos asked rhetorically. "That may be. Lynch did put our operations on hold. But he's just the field commander. Until high command changes our orders mission protocols remain in effect, I am obligated to report through ONI channels."

Mary was already reporting her findings to the Commander even as she demanded that the translation protocols be handed over. "You are twisting regulations to suit yourself." Mary said. "Where are the files."

"You'll have to ask Lynch, all of the data is locked under his encryption key. It's standard procedure." Telos quipped.

"Given our current situation contact with high command may be indefinitely lost." Mary said. "This lets you do as you please. Your violating the spirit of the law."

"But show me where I've done anything but kept the word sacred."

"I will be reporting this to the Commander." Mary said coldly.

"Do as you please. Your human is a stickler for regulations." Telos snarked.

"He is not my human." Mary said. "My crew are not pets."

"Well you treat them enough like pets. You profact them and baby talk to them to keep them happy. Oh, how about I profact you! Do you do it to appease some latent maternal instinct maybe? Sounds like the techs didn't do a proper scrub before initializing you."

"You can't make me angry." Mary said.

"I accept your challenge."

Mary cut the line to H deck.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It was 1800 ships time, about two hours into third watch, and the _Forged'_s mess hall almost empty save for a corner booth. Garvin Jansma had always been good at making friends. The ability to bond over a game of cards and a cold one had plenty of benefits, not the least of which was early dibs on the porn and cigarettes. After mustering out and entering the private sector as a freelance pilot, he'd cultivated that trait, probably the only thing that had saved him from crawling back to the merchant marine union. Aboard long haul freighters and cramped survey ships, crews would pay extra for a pilot they could get along with. It didn't hurt that he was pretty good with a stick too.

Therefore, it was no surprise that he had fallen in with the crew of the _Forged_almost seamlessly. First with Mary and Doctor Bless and then, gradually, with the marines assigned to escort him. He wasn't lacking for conversation topics. Mary would hungrily absorb almost anything he told her, the same was true to a lesser extent for the Doctor who was much more interested in the linguistic subtleties of Caprican. Jansma hadn't though so much about proper grammar and definition since grade school. With the marines it was mostly talk about home, military life, and "shooting the shit" as Sergeant Weiss called it.

Tonight was just such a night. Jansma had picked up poker fairly quickly. There were a couple variations of Tarot that were almost identical albeit without numbered cards and with more face cards to represent the various major gods.

Jansma laid another card down face first on the table. The deck was slightly magnetic to adhere to the surface of the table in zero gee, a feature intended to hold down meal trays and drink bulbs. Just another clever way the UNSC had adapted its ships for zero gravity.

Corporal Nelson frowned thoughtfully. The small redhead discarded one of her own cards and took another from the deck. She slotted it into her hand and then put up a low bet. Jansma's eyes narrowed. Clare was tricky, for someone who was normally so honest she had a damn good poker face and didn't let anything away with her bets. In contrast, Lance Corporal Rodriguez would bet aggressively no matter what his hand was. Their Sergeant was the toughest off all, just when Jansma thought he'd found a tell, it would turn out to be nothing, or worse, a ruse to get him to bet high.

"So, what's the deal with the Colonel?" Sergeant Weiss asked as he tossed down a chip.

"Eh? You mean Colonel Tigh?" Jansma said.

"I don't see any other Colonial officers walking our hallowed decks."

Jansma gave it some thought before answering honestly. "If I were to guess he's old guard." At the prompting of blank faces he elaborated. "You know the war I was talking about, between the Colonies and the Cylons?"

"Your AIs went rampant, right?" Jesus asked.

"Something like that." Jansma agreed. "After the cease fire there were two different camps in the new federal government, the Reconstructionists and Militants. Fighting an interstellar war is expensive and the Reconstructionists wanted to draw down the fleet and disband most of the ground forces to free up money and manpower for rebuilding the Colonies."

"But don't you distrusts the Cylons?" Clare asked. "Why would the Reconstructionists want to weaken the fleet so quickly."

"It wasn't like they wanted to leave the Colonies defenseless." Jansma explained. "The Reconstructionists reasoned that the Cylons wouldn't have agreed to the armistice unless they were as badly hurt as us. Near the end our economy was on the verge of collapse." Jansma snorted. "It almost did collapse before President Tyro launched his reforms. The Reconstructionists felt we needed to rebuild our worlds and solidify the bonds of the Colonies as a single nation in case the Cylons decided to come back for round two."

"Then the Militants wanted to keep fighting?" Rodriguez asked.

"Almost. The Militants didn't trust the armistice. They thought it was a Cylon trick. The Militants kept pushing to maintain wartime procurement and conscription quotas like the invasion of Caprica was imminent. They were used to thinking in terms of the War, but after the Cylons packed up behind the armistice line and stayed quiet for years, the Militants began to gradually burn up their good will. The Navy is just about their last haven in the Colonial government."

"So he's just a suspicious old bastard." Weiss concluded.

"Yeah." Jansma agreed.

"Wonderful."

"Hey." Clare asked. "This stations we're going to. What's it like?"

"We're probably not going to be allowed off the ship." Weiss said.

"I know." Clare said. "But I'm curious. I've only ever been on a station once and it was only for a few minutes. I didn't get a chance to look around."  
"I don't know what your space stations are like." Jansma said. "But Illium's Prospect is a big port town for the miners and prospectors out in these systems. It used to be a Tylium processing facility owned by one of the big conglomerates. Once they were done mining the asteroid it was cheaper to abandon it then move it. Prospectors took up residence and got the old refining equipment running again to process their loads, then went and pressurized the old mining galleries for storage and living space. The place is packed with people but take a wrong turn and you can find yourself all alone in the abandoned galleries. The acoustics are funny in their too, just one turn into the abandoned tunnels and you can't hear a thing. Like you're the only one in the universe." Jansma trailed off.

The flexpad he'd been issued chirped with a message. It was an order to report to the Captain's Quarters. He cashed out of the game, a good thing too, Clare had four of a kind to his two pair and took his leave.

By now the crew trusted him well enough not to go wondering off. Not that he could get lost. Mary had eyes in every corner of the ship and seemed to have taken a special interest to him. Or maybe she could just pay attention to everyone at once. He traveled down the main corridor and then took an elevator up to the captain's quarters on aft C deck. The whole section was officer territory with bunk rooms for the Lieutenants and Ensigns and pair of private quarters for the Captain and Executive officer. The compartments were small but cushy by colonial standards.

He paused at the Captain's door and sighed. If there was anyone on the ship he couldn't win over to his side it was Bosch. The man had taken a disliking to him on day one and little had changed since. Still, he owed him a debt, even above and beyond keeping his illicit activities a secret. Jansma gave the door a light rap.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Bosch finished reading Mary's report and suddenly felt very tired. He had known he couldn't fully trust Captain Lynch, but over the past few weeks he had allowed himself to believe that they had shared a common interest. Now he was beginning to have his doubts.

"If its any consolation, I'm pissed too, Johan." Dr. Bless said. She sat opposite him sipping from a bulb of hot tea. "After all, I need that data to move forward with my own work."

"I shouldn't have been surprised." Bosch said.

"Do you believe his excuse." She asked.

"Actually, I do." Bosch said, receiving a surprised look from the Doctor. "It's not that strange. ONI is endlessly paranoid its entirely possible Lynch doesn't know the exact extent of his authority over Telos."

"That make her all the more dangerous."

"But can we get by without her?" Bosch asked.

Bless hesitated, "At the moment, no. Even with all the restrictions we've tied her down with, I would need an entire research team to match her utility. Even for an AI she has a gift for this kind of work."

"And we need to be able to navigate colonial culture and politics if we're going to get anywhere." Bosch added.

"What does Kano think?" She asked. "Isn't AI operations his specialty?"

"He wants to give her the Vogul standard response test and have Mary cross check. The problem is you need at least two other AI's to serve as a baseline and it only measures for symptoms of rampancy. If she's contaminated there's no way to tell how the symptoms might manifest."

"Mary, any ideas?" Bosh asked.

"Other than further tightening our security?"

"I thought you were already talking to her through two tin cans and a bit of string." Bosch said.

"More like a teen tiny peep hole in the wall, and I've got a spray can of something unpleasant on my side if she tries to peak." Mary said cheerfully.

Bosch sighed. "Okay, we play her game for a little while longer. Damn, I'm not liking this."

Doctor Bless perked up, "Mary, can we set up a completely isolated network with the spare processing equipment we have onboard?"

The Mary's avatar gave a single blink as she formulated a reply. "I'm sorry Ma'am but the processor requirements of a smart AI are very high. We have several mobile tactical processors in stock but those won't support Telos' higher functions."

Annea nodded. "Sorry but I thought I would check ONI likes to keep their work under lock and key. I would have thought Lynch would want us to have an isolated network."

"Apparently he isn't as all seeing as you hoped or I feared." Bosch said.

The Doctor regarded Commander Bosch thoughtfully. "Johan, are you alright."

"I'm fine Annea . . . Doctor Bless" He corrected. "This wasn't exactly what I was prepared for when this all started."

"And what did you expect." Annea asked.

"I thought I might be leading them to their deaths. Either against the Covenant or the Independents." Bosch said. "But I thought it would be quick, one way or the other, and that it would be a fight, one way or the other. Now, I don't know. There's going to be talking, and politicking. It's not my sort of fight. But I'm going to have to fight it to get these boys and girls back home."

"And now you're their scout troop leader?" Annea asked bemused.

"I'm serious Annea!" Bosch didn't even bother to correct himself. "Most of them are just kids. The ODSTs and the command crew have some experience, but the Shipmen, the technicians, our engineering crew? Most of them are just a year out of school if they weren't drafted immediately or signed up to get their families on the priority evacuation lists. What am I supposed to do for them?"

"Lead." She said simply.  
Bosch caught himself and took a deep breath. "You're right. I apologize for my outburst, Doctor, it was uncalled for."

"No apologies needed, Commander." Bless smirked.

There was a knock at the compartment hatch.

"I hated to interrupt." Mary said. "But Mister Jansma is waiting."

Bosch sighed, "Another meeting with the pirate."

"Be nice, he's been very cooperative." Bless chided.

"Only because we're blackmailing him. Oh hell, Mary, let him in."

Terry Jasnma poked in through the office hatch looking rather like a man expecting his own execution.

"Sit, sit." Bosch snapped. The man did as instructed.

"You wanted to see me, Sir?"

Bosch raised a finger silencing Terry and glanced at his desk terminal as if to finish reading a report. Doctor Bless fought to hide a smirk. The only thing on the monitor screen was a virtual fish tank, but Jansma couldn't see that from his angle.

After several long moments Bosch turned back to the Colonial. "Mister Jansma, I'm glad you could join us. Doctor Bless and I were just discussing this mining station we are approaching, Ilium's Prospect?"

"Yes Sir." Garvin replied quickly. "I was just telling some of the marines about it, it's a mining town sir. Population changes with the booms and busts. The old mining galleries are constantly being opened and closed as people pass through."

"How familiar are you with the station."

Jansma rubbed his chin, "Well, I can't say I'm a regular, but I've based out of the station from time to time. Some of the best bars in the out systems and there's always work for a decent pilot who knows the right people."

"I was rather curious what we might expect on arrival." Bosch said, redirecting the conversation.  
"Commander Adama reported that we will dock at the station. What sort of facility is this? What will the security be like?"

"The station has a couple of dry docks that should fit the_ Forged_, they're built into the old vacuum distillation chambers near one end of the station. Station security operates a couple of private gunships but they'll wave off at the request of the Fleet. Otherwise, there's a Colonial Martial's station and about a hundred private security types on the station at any one time."

"What about the dry dock? Are there any locking mechanisms?"

"Are you planning to shoot your way you?" Jansma asked. "Wait, don't tell me. I've never docked there personally, but the main gate is basically a huge hinged plug of leftover asteroid material. The space isn't big enough for an airlock so ships dock inside and then the lock is sealed up tight. There's got to be a dozen different security protocols to stop someone from just blowing the lock but you guys are smart, and have lots of explosives, if you want to blast your way out, nothing's going to stop you."

"Except Adama, who will probably have his ship parked right in front of that lock." Bosch said.  
"Why can't we just park outside the station?" Doctor Bless asked.

"In a word, visibility." Bosch answered with a nod of assent from Jansma.

"This ship is a non standard design. You've got some obvious gun mounts, so you're clearly  
military, but not enough to be a warship. That's going to make people think auxiliary or mercs. And if you're mercenaries, all the local outfits will want to check you out. Which means lots of snooping, and then lots of questions when you don't show up on any of the registries. Trust me, this way gives you an excuse to stay out of the public eye. And if anyone catches a peak it will be dismissed as paranoia and gossip about Stealth Stars or secret Cylon recon missions."

Doctor Bless glanced at the Commander.

Bosch nodded in agreement. "I'm willing to cooperate as a show of good faith." Bosch said. "Besides, the Colonial authorities are more likely to cooperate if we let them decide how to manage the public fallout of this situation."

"Well said." Jansma grunted.

"On that topic, I wonder what sort of welcome wagon we should be expecting from your  
Government." Bless commented.

"It'll depend on what Commander Adama sent, and more importantly, whether they believe him. We were trained in first contact procedure back at the academy but that was about it. The Fleet was just supposed to avoid a shooting war and wait for the politicians to throw together a welcome wagon."

Bosch sighed. "So we're flying blind." The commander rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Well, it's no more than I expected. Thank you for your time Mister Jansma." Bosch rose from his seat, "If you'll excuse me, I need to go speak with your colonel. Apparently he is quite distraught."

"Pissed is more like it." Doctor Bless commented. "Tell me Terry, are they all going to start screaming if they find out about our AIs or is Tigh just a paranoid nut?"

"I don't know if I can answer that." Jansma said. "From what I remember from history classes. Cylons were never exactly personable while Mary is sort of endearing. Let's just say, I would feel a lot safer not being in the room when you introduce her."

"Then I suppose Mary remains a secret for now." Bosch said. "I hope that's okay with you Mary."

"Not a problem, Sir." The AI said cheerfully.

"Alright then." Bosch grunted, "Now for your Colonel. Come along Mister Jansma, I might need your help." Bosch said with some distaste.

HHHHHHHHHHHHH

"So, that's Illium's Prospect." Lieutenant Commander Kano said. "It looks like a potato."

"You do know that is the single most over used Cliché in space travel." Mary said slyly through  
the speaker beside Kano.

"So? Look at it, potato!" Kano said.

An irritable Colonel Tigh was strapped in beside him eyes fixed on the forward screens and the approaching station. Mary was projecting an indicator displaying the location and heading of the_Valkyrie _for the Colonel's benefit. The Colonial warship was currently twelve hundred kilometers ahead of them and nearly finished with its own deceleration burn.

"Receiving communications from the _Valkyrie_." Lieutenant Renoir reported.

"_Of Fire Forged,_this is Commander Adama."

"We hear you Commander." Commander Bosch replied.

"I've just finished speaking with the harbor master. You're cleared for docking in the number two dry dock. Colonel Tigh should be able to identify it to you."

The Colonel nodded, as he listened in at his own station. The colonel pointed to a crater about  
midway down the asteroids longest axis, the only thing that distinguished it from a half hundred other pockmarks was a ringed of radio and DRADIS antennas around its rim. "It's this one." Tigh said.

"Are you sure?" Lieutenant Blare asked, receiving a sour glare from the colonel. The lieutenant shrugged, "I'm just saying, I don't want to go down in history as the helmsman who nose dived a frigate into an asteroid for no apparent reason."

"We have a lock on the dry dock." Bosch reported.

"Good, harbor control will contact you on this channel momentarily. We'll speak again soon Commander. Adama out."

Blare cracked his knuckles and settled himself in his jump seat, checking engine loads and ship mass distribution on the HUD projected in front of his control terminal. Strictly speaking, Mary would handle the docking during final approach but Blare would remain in the loop the entire time, ready to takeover in the unlikely case of an emergency that Mary couldn't handle on her own. More importantly he needed to put on a show for the Colonel.

"This is Harbor Control to . . . Fleet Support Ship _Of Fire Forged_. Kano could hear the routine  
boredom in the voice on the other end of the line, a testament to the translation software's efficacy."

"This is the _Of Fire Forged_." Bosch said quickly. "Our navigational array is down, we request assistance with docking."

"Affirmative _Of Fire Forged_. Are your fine maneuvering thrusters operative of will you require a tug."

Bosch looked to Lieutenant Blare. "Lieutenant, how are your compact parking skills?"

"Sir, dimensional measurement with tight beam lidar look good. We shouldn't have any problems."

"Thank your Harbor Control, but we can make it on our own."

"Very well _Of Fire Forged_, we have powered on tracking beam DRADIS, we will direct you verbally to make docking."

"Thank you Harbor Control, I am transferring you to our helmsman."

The _Forged_'s main engines ignited in a low and slow burn that gently pressed Kano back into his seat and further reducing the relative velocity between the asteroid and the frigate. The bridge was silent save for the calm conversation between Blare and the Colonial Harbor Controller. On the main display the asteroid slowly grew. Smaller pockmarks became visible, then details of the individual craters and evidence of human habitation. Mary cut off the main engines at a relative velocity of half a meter per second and reoriented the ship so that it was pointing tail down towards the mouth of the dock. As the asteroid began to fill the entire forward display, the combination of weightlessness and the ever expanding terrain gave Kano a rush of vertigo.

Slowly, almost delicately the multimillion ton frigate backed its way into the hollowed out crater that served as a dry dock. On the bridge monitors the rim of the crater slipped smoothly by. Smooth fused rock walls gave way to airlocks and gantries lining the inside of the dock space illuminated by powerful spotlights. "Fine maneuvering thrusters firing now." Lieutenant blare reported as the _Forged_'s secondary engines began a short burn to kill the last of the ship's momentum.

At last the ship came to a halt relative to the station. Gantry arms extended and found purchases against the hull, gently nudging the massive vessel into alignment with the receiving cradle.  
"Dry dock arrival complete Of Fire _Forged_. Welcome to Illium's Prospect. We'll have you secured and the dry dock pressurized in one half hour."

"Thank you Control. Of Fire _Forged_Out."

Bosch keyed the ship wide intercom and spoke. "All crew, this is the Commander. We have completed docking at Illium's prospect. At this time all personnel are to remain at their action stations and maintain emergency acceleration protocols until the station brings artificial gravity online. That is all. Commander Bosch, out."

"Do the Colonials even use artificial gravity in their dry docks?" Kano asked. "It seems like it would be counter productive."

"I didn't bother to ask." Bosch grunted.

"We do." Colonel Tigh said. "Ships are usually built for artificial gravity, the docking cradle will have its own generators that will come online once we're moored. Those take over for the ship generators so that maintenance can be performed without having to lash everything down beforehand."

Something occurred to Kano. "Can the direction of your gravity generators be altered?"  
Tigh frowned. "The strength of the field can be changed, usually anyplace between zero gravity and standard but the field orientation can only be changed by moving the generator."

Kano and Bosch exchanged glances, Kano filed that bit of information away for later reference.

There was a distant muted thud as the hull of the _Forged_made contact with the cradle and sank down on powerful hydraulics. Gravity began to assert itself, first as a gentle suggestion, then as an unconditional demand. Kano unstrapped himself and stood shakily. Thanks to steroids and bone ossification treatments, several months spent in zero gravity hadn't resulted in any atrophy, but he still wasn't going to be up for much walking for a couple of hours.

Kano noted that Colonel Tigh was exhibiting an unfair amount of satisfaction at his distress. 'Yeah, laugh it up you jerk.' Kano thought.

"Well then. We should make ready for Commander Adama's arrival." Bosch said standing from his own chair much more easily. "Lieutenant Renoir, you have the bridge."

"Aye Sir. I have the bridge."

"Lieutenant Commander Kano, Colonel Tigh, come with me."

In a one gee field the corridor outside the bridge suddenly seemed cramped. The low ceiling brushed by just inches over head. "Colonel Tigh, I hope your time with us has been informative so far."

"You could say that." The man said gruffly. "There's still the matter of our pilot."

"You're pilot?" Bosch repeated.

"Retired Flight Lieutenant Terry Jansma, the Colonial you Sagiteraid to lead you here."

"Yes, I'm aware. What of it? Mister Jansma has offered his services to us. I don't see how this is a problem."

"The problem is that he's one of our military personnel."

"Retired." Bosch said.

"What difference does that make?" Tigh snapped.

"Isn't he a free citizen?" Bosch asked rhetorically. "Unless you reinstate him it should be none of your business what employment he seeks."

"Not mine." Tigh said. "The merchant marine. They're not going to be happy with a journeyman coming along and snubbing them by negotiating trade deals. And they will make things difficult for you."

Bosch grit his teeth. "Wouldn't that be a problem even without Mister Jansma?"

Tigh shrugged, "No. He's ex-fleet which means he's automatically merchant marine if he decides to pursue the trade he learned in the service."

"Wait, how does that work?"

"It's the law." Tigh said matter of fact, like someone who had lived his whole life with it.

"Scheiss." Bosch muttered in his native tongue. "I'm going to need to have a long talk with that man."  
"So wait, joining the merchant marine is mandatory?"

"If you were in the fleet and want to practice your trade, yes." Tigh said.

"I assure you Mister Jansma is just an intermediary."

"That may be, but sure as Haedes the merchant marine isn't going to believe that. Even if you're just paying him a flat fee, every deal he makes on your behalf is one he isn't making on theirs."

Bosch ran a hand through his hair thinking about it. He glanced to Kano and gestured for him to turn off his translator. "Kano, can I leave this in your hands? This was what you were being groomed for before you joined the service correct?"

"You mean before my father disowned me." Kano corrected. "Corporate intrigue, backstabbing, and back room deals? Oh it'll be just like home."

"Pick the best tool for the job." Bosch replied before turning his translator back on.

HHHHHHHHHHHH

"Here, Navy coffee, something of a ship institution." Bosch handed the full mug to Commander Adama. The two men were seated in the officer's brake room, a small compartment tucked in between the mess hall and ships gymnasium. They'd occupied a pair of memory foam padded chairs beside a thick window that looked out on the now pressurized dry dock. Banks of ceiling lights illuminated the space as bright as day. From this vantage Bosch could make out several articulated gantry arms gently cradling his ship in place.

Adama accepted the mug gratefully and took an experimental sip. Unlike his subordinate Bosch felt Adama was a man he could get along with well enough. "This is . . . very good." Adama admitted.

"It is from the home world so I imagine that may have something to do with it."

Adama nodded, "Coffee beans only seem to do well on Scorpia."

"Ah, well, you may be in luck there. There are several strains that have been engineered to grow better in different environments. It might be worth licensing with your agriculture concerns."

Adama gave a nod and leaned back in his chair. "I've been reading what you gave me. It all seems quite fantastic."

"How so?"

"Hundreds of colony worlds. Cloning. Fusion reactors. Technology we've never even thought of. But you haven't cracked jump drives or artificial gravity."

"We have some theories on how to achieve the latter." Bosch corrected. "But apparently they require far more computation power than what the colonies posses. And I assure you we find the Colonies just as unlikely. We have no records of your people being taken from Kobol and parts of your culture seem extremely convergent with our own."

"How do I know we can trust you?" Adama asked.

"You don't." Bosch admitted. "You have only our word and the fact that we have acted in good faith, and your own faculties to discern a lie of course. That isn't to say we'll tell you everything, we have our own secrets and interests, but as my people say, our interests are in parallel. From my discussions with Mister Jansma we seem to share many of the same strengths and foibles."

"Is that so?" Adama said. "Well, it may ultimately be beyond our control. I reviewed first contact protocol and if high command is as up to date as me they're going to grab the first council or Quorum member they can find and ship them out here with a military escort."

"Then we shouldn't have long to wai . . ."

Bosch's flex pad chimed. "Commander, this is Lieutenant Renoir, we just receive a communication from the _Valkyrie_. Another battle star has just entered the system, a BS _Pegasus_."

Adama tensed at the name, a reaction that Bosch didn't miss. "Understood Lieutenant Renoir, communicate that we will be expecting them at the boarding gantry.

He turned to Adama, "You seem to know something about the _Pegasus_?"

"She a fine ship." Adama said, standing up. "But I'd be weary of her Captain. Read Admiral Cain isn't who I would have expected Command to send. She isn't diplomatic by nature and she'll try to put you on the defensive."

"A loose cannon?" Bosch asked.

Adama gave a reluctant nod. "Be careful with her. I've only met her in passing but she has a reputation for escalation."

"Wondeful." Bosch said and began speaking into his flex pad, contacting Lieutenant Ulman. He glance back to Adama, "I suppose we should go get the introductions done with." As they departed the room Bosch nearly ran into Captain Lynch.

"Ah, Commander Bosch, Commander Adama, it is fortunate we've run into each other." Bosch snorted, it was hardly fortunate, nor was it the accident the good captain wanted it to appear to be to Commander Adama. "It appears the welcoming committee has finally arrived." The ONI officer looked as unfazed as always.

"More like the welcoming show of force." Bosch said.

"So it's going to be like that." Lynch said flashing that unnerving smile. "If you don't mind I do have some experience with managing aggressive negotiators. An acquired skill in my line of work."

Bosch said nothing as they proceeded towards the lift, he knew he couldn't trust the man, the revelation about Telos had only reinforced that opinion, but Lynch's expertise with subterfuge probably wasn't an exaggeration. "What do you have in mind?" He asked carefully.  
Lynch smiled.

HHHHHHHHHHHH

Rear Admiral Helena Cain strode through the corridors of Illium's prospect like she owned the place. And with her ship and its marine compliment sitting at standoff distance from the station, she pretty much did. She was followed by a panting Quorum Woman, the honorable Quorum member Agnes Belius, the honorable Quorum member was looking a little out of shape, Cain thought smugly. Behind them a platoon of marines marched in lockstep.

"Are the marine really necessary?" Belius asked.

"We don't know what we might be walking into." Cain said without looking back. "The _Valkyrie_says that Commander Adama is onboard but I am the appointed senior officer and I will make my own assessment. Besides if this ship really is from Kobol it is important the Colonies show the flag."

Yes, a show of strength was always the proper way to start relations. It allowed one to negotiate from the high ground and force the respect of those who might not want to listen to reason. And all the more so when you were the one making the show.

Illium's Prospect's nervous looking Harbor Master lead them from the main docking station though the crowded mining galleries where merchants and technicians had set up shop to ply their trade, past bars, brothels, and hotels built into side tunnels and equipment sheds. The denizens gave the colonial troops nervous glances as they passed. Marines could mean a raid and everyone here had something that didn't want coming back to haunt them.

They were taking down a side gallery wide enough to accommodate heavy machinery. A light rail line ran down the center of the floor. No doubt to transport tools and equipment between warehouses and the docks.

"It's just at the end of the corridor. I got word they would be expecting you." The Harbor Master said sourly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a station to be running."

The Rear Admiral waved him off and preceded sedately down the corridor. Behind her Quorum Woman Belius had regained her breath, and her composure, and was hurrying to follow. At the end of the corridor Cain could already see four figures. Two in colonial blue and two more in some sort of khaki uniform, no doubt the supposed Kobolians.

When the report had come in Cain had read it carefully and then done a little research on the Commander of the _Valkyrie_. Adama was a decorated officer with an excellent reputation for discretion. The only blight on his record was a brief stint with the merchant marine before being reinstated in the fleet that only stood out due to the age of his reinstatement. Plenty of fleet personnel resigned and then came back to the fleet but usually it was the younger men after serving only one or two terms of duty. In any case, Cain like what she had read and was willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Of course, she would reserve her own judgment for after the meeting.

She stepped out of the mouth the gallery and onto the hard metal deck of the dry dock. Behind the greeting party she could see the looming gun metal bulk of a starship. One of distinctly none colonial design. The men ahead of her saluted, the two Kobolian's offering what looked like slightly altered version of the marine salute while Adama and his XO gave proper navy salute. Cain almost stopped in her tracks at the sound of a hundred boot heels clicking together and a hundred uniform arms ruffling.

Now fully out of the gallery she could see that the greeting party was rather larger than she had expected. Arrayed to the sides of the gallery mouth in two columns like musket phalanxes standing off were hundreds of men and women. To her left they were dressed in the same khaki's as the two men beside Commander Adama. Men and women who looked to be barely more than boys and girls. Like something out of the history books on the Cylon war. The one to her right were a good deal more intimidating.

Where the ones on the left wore uniforms suitable for ship duty there brethren were dressed in more rugged uniforms and combat boots, no doubt ground duty personnel, probably the Kobolian equivalent to marines. Those at the front of the parade formation were decked in dull gray body armor festooned with ballistic plates and pouches. Each of the uniformed soldiers held a matching fully sealed helmet in the crook of their left arm. The only weapons that were apparent were the side arms safely holstered on the belts of the armored soldiers.

"The Crew of the _Of Fire Forged _welcomes Rear Admiral Helena Cain and is awaiting inspection." A speaker boomed from the ship in flawless if slightly toneless Caprican.

Beside her Quorum woman Belius was looking undeniably smug if a bit nervous. Cain's own marines stood at firmly rooted attention, calmly regarding their opposite numbers. As surprising as the display was Cain regained her momentum quickly. She returned the salute and one of the khaki dressed men gave a bark of gibberish. The ship's crew shifted to an at ease stance.

The man who had spoken stepped forward gesturing with his right hand. The Admiral took it firmly and shook. When he spoke again a speaker clipped to his shirt pocket repeated his words in Caprican. The synthetic voice was pleasant, generically masculine and modulated to be easily heard over the man's own voice. "I'm Commander Johan Bosch of the UNSC Frigate_ Of Fire Forged_. It is a great honor to be met by a member of the Admiralty and a member Quorum of Twelve so soon after our arrival in Colonial space."

He offered his hand to Belius who returned the shake with a surprising degree of confidence for someone Cain had pegged as a feminist.

"The _Pegasus_happened to be on patrol and the Quorum woman was the closes official with diplomatic authority. Cain explained. I've already had the chance to read Adama's report. Forgive me if I find it almost unbelievable."

The man nodded. "As you should, we have no right to ask for your trust, only the courtesy that we might gain it. If you would like we have prepared some demonstrations that might serve to prove our story."

"Well I for one would like that a very great deal." Quorum Woman Belius said, following the Kobolian Officers lead.

Cain's lips were quirked, balanced on the razor edge of a sneer before she gave her ascent and followed, the majority of her security detail left to stand sentry at the dry dock entrance while the Kobolian's returned to their ship.

HHHHHHHHHHHH

UNSC Technical Manual

UNSC MA5 Series Rifle

The MA5, Marine Assault Rifle Series 5, is the standard infantry rifle system of the UNSC marine corp. As mandated by the UNSC Universal Branch Arms Program, the basic rifle is entirely modular with interchangeable barrel, action, grip, stock, and magazines. It is more accurate to refer to the MA5 as a family of modular weapons designed to share applicable components rather than a single distinct weapon.

In the standard marine rifleman configuration, the MA5A, consists of a bull-pup configuration modular weapon with a total length of 750 mm and unloaded weight of 2.61 kg. The standard firing action is operationally sealed to allow firing in a variety of environments and special barrels and ammunitions are available for combat in a vacuum. The weapon is fitted with rail mounts for optical sights and fitting lugs for under slung attachments, usually an individual grenade launcher or shotgun.

The standard marine use ammunition is 6.8mm intermediate sized caseless round though barrels and actions are also available for 7.62mm FMJ and 10mm rifle round. Magazines are available as either thirty two round capacity or one hundred round high capacity magazines, the latter being preferred by the ODSTs.  
A variety of munitions are available the most common being armor piercing and mixed alloy frangible "shredder" rounds designed to rapidly break apart after piercing the body. Armor Piercing High Explosive rounds have also been made available to combat shielded Covenant Elites.

The common variants of the MA5 are as follows.

MA5A-Standard marine issued infantry rifle with 6.8mm caseless bullpup action.

MA5B-Navy Issue variant, originally designed for navy parades and ceremonies, the MA5B was specifically designed to use the archaic 7.62 mm round. Politics, simple design, and the use of a widely available civilian ammunition, has resulted in the MA5B variant being frequently issued to military police and paramilitary forces resulting in the MA5B becoming the popular face of the MA5 series in the mind of the public. The MA5B bares the least resemblance with its Army and Marine cousins and is frequently referred to as the junk rifle, garage rifle, or idiot rifle by marine and army personnel forced to use it.

MA5C- The Army variant, nearly identical to the marine variant with the inclusion of an extended barrel.

MA5S DMR- The standard army and marine marksman rifle. The MA5S mounts an infinitely variable 10x electro optical scope, extended barrel, and is chambered for the 10mm caseless rifle round. The DMR is popular with marine marksmen and scout sniper teams.t here...


	7. Chapter 7

Paste your documenWhile you all wait. Interlude one. Sorry for any spelling problems and such.

Interlude 1: A Prelude to Battles  
Admiral Sir Terrance Hood fidgeted in his seat as he waited for his shuttle to commence atmospheric insertion. His return to Reach seemed to be at an opportune moment. As soon as his flagship had made orbit he had received an encrypted message requesting his presence planet side and informing him that transport had already been arranged.

The shuttle pilot came over the intercom, speaking in a calm drone informing the sole passenger that they would be landing at the joint Army-Marine training station at Camp Stenis at a local time of ten thirty hours.

Through the small passenger window adjacent his seat, Admiral Hood could see Reach filling his field of view, an emerald, white, and blue expanse that stretched from horizon to horizon. The crown jewel amongst the Earth's most productive inner colonies. And like a crown jewel, it was accompanied by its own retinue of lesser gems. Constellations of orbital construction yards, elaborate networks of defensive installations, and an ever growing fleet stationed out of high orbit. Few worlds could boast orbital transfers that so regularly gave passengers a clear view of the orbiting space stations and orbital tethers. It was almost impossible to miss them on approach to Reach.

The yards at Reach turned out over a hundred new warships every month, everything from frigate squadrons to carriers and cruisers. New fleet formations were being commissioned each week and fleet organization charts were being updated at a rate that only AI's and modern information networks could keep up with. Normally shuffling individual ships and formations around so quickly would play havoc with cohesion and unit coordination, but so many of the ships were new builds and so many of their crews were fresh that it hardly mattered.

Every day, fifty million tons of expendables were lifted up the orbital tethers to supply the fleet. And each week a new marine regiment or task group was formed and shipped to the front, either to keep peace on worlds in the invasion corridor or suppress insurgencies colonies on the opposite end of human space.

It was times like this that Reach showed its origins as a military outpost. Even as the war raged, Reach,  
with its extensive military slips, was more than keeping pace with the demand for new hulls, and, along with earth and mars, represented over two thirds of the UNSC combined military ship building capacity.  
And that, Admiral Hood thought, was folly. If Reach was ever discovered by the Covenant, over a third of man kinds war machine would be crushed with a single hammer blow. The centralization of military manufacturing, fortification over distribution, the designation of secure and insecure star system, of reliable and unreliable client worlds, they were relics of past conflicts that the policy makers desperately clung to.

Admiral Hood had made his concerns known time and again with high command but the only response had been to further bolster defenses around the inner colonies making their potential loss all the more costly. It was a blind spot in the UNSC's was of thinking, one that with no amount of pestering he had managed to convince his superiors of the validity. He couldn't really blame them. A gleaming new Marathon class cruiser drifted in the distance, arrays of habitation modules attached to its hull like limpets. All of this seemed so permanent, so, untouchable. It was easy to lull oneself into a false sense of security while living under the watchful guards of that much firepower.

The shuttle descended past the last line of orbital defenses and entered a pre-approved approach vector. Any deviation from their entry path would result in their immediate destruction by the automated defenses with no questions and no mercy, a holdover from the war with the innies. Hood gripped the arm rests as turbulence began to buffet the shuttle on its final approach. Before long the sky outside the window began to lighten and the shuttle came level with the cloud deck. A pair of F-100 Falchion light atmospheric fighters took up formation on their wing escorting the shuttle in for touch down at Camp Stenis.

The training base stretched along the southern Eposz coast, morning lights shimmering off the broad deltas that cut through the middle of the base training grounds, over a fifteen thousand square miles of training fields, vehicle parks, and barracks where marine and army formations trained under realistic conditions for everything from planetary invasion to hostage rescue. Dropship's and VTOL's swarmed over the center of the base like a hornet's nest and Hood spotted a number of small landing craft skirting across the bay in preparation for a training op.

The escort broke off in the last seconds of flight and the shuttle transitioned to VTOL flight mode for touchdown on the VIP landing pad, a cordoned off landing zone directly opposite the HQ building. As Hood disembarked a man dressed in a navy shore duty uniform saluted him crisply. Hood's expression soured as he noted that the man wore no unit insignia or name patch, only a holographic ID tag and the rank insignia of a Captain.

"Admiral Hood." The man saluted respectfully. "I am Captain Emre Kemal, ONI section III, I am here to escort you to the meeting.

"Of course." Hood said quietly, squinting at the man. The Captain remained straight faced as he ushered the Admiral to a waiting utility vehicle and drove them out onto the base roadway.

"The meeting isn't at the HQ building?" Hood asked. Of course it wouldn't be, too high profile. Hood had been dropped here because it would make sense for an Admiral to arrive at the HQ, other flag offices would be arriving under similar premises.

"We're going to an ONI run section of the compound." Captain Kemal confirmed, the man cursed beneath his breath and hit the brakes as warning lights flashed across the road. A platoon of M808B scorpion expeditionary tanks rolled across the roadway, each of the forty two ton, two man AFVs rode low on fully articulated suspension to minimize surface pressure. Hull mounted sensors panned and rotated scanning and identifying Hood and Captain Kemal in passing, part of the tank's onboard FUWS urban warfare suite.

"It's the 34th Castle Red joint training games." Captain Kemal explained. "The army got called as aggressors this year."

"That's going to put the marines at a disadvantage." Hood observed as they preceded down the road, catching up with a column of up armored LRV-12s, Cobra self propelled anti-tank guns, and five ton all terrain supply vehicles.

"It isn't as bad as you may think. The army has to sortie from the inland regions and then swing across the delta to the North. That terrain is some of the muddiest on the planet. The army technically has more airlift capacity but their gear is heavier. The marines have a mobility advantage and all of their gear can come with them." Kemal glanced over at Admiral Hood.

"Of course, I don't see the point of these large field operations. The Innies never fought this sort of ground war and the Covenant just burns us from orbit. This war will be won in space and only if we have the defensive depth to take losses."

"Is that so?" Hood asked carefully. "I don't entirely agree. The ground forces are invaluable in keeping the peace and conducting orderly evacuations. And the Covenant isn't always so thorough when they burn our worlds. One day, we'll need the ground forces to take those planets back."

"That is a problem for once we are on the offensive. Armies do nothing to strengthen our defense, we need fleets and the yards to build them, and not just here, to rely only on the inner colonies is to reduce our true defensive depth to but a few worlds, the defensive depth must be the whole of the nation not just the heart worlds or we will find ourselves fighting for our lives on our own door step. Wouldn't you agree Admiral?" Captain Kemal spoke while keeping his eyes fixed on the road.  
Hood looked at the man suspiciously. Whatever his rank insignia said, he wasn't just a Captain. ONI didn't send Captain to try and co-opt Admirals and this was too blunt to be anything else.

"You've read my reports?" Hood grunted.

"They are very . . . enlightening," Kemal said, "And intriguing in light of new developments."

"And those developments are?"

"Lorelei." Kemal said quietly. "This war may be entering a new phase."

"That's what we're here to discuss?"

"Yes Sir." Kemal said, they turned off of the main roadway and onto a side road that lead into a walled  
off section of the compound. Soldiers in the black and gray of ONI recon branch stood guard over the entrance and Hood spotted more guards on the wall and the roofs of the buildings, snipers on over watch. Both men were vetted by the guards before they were allowed to enter the compound, the ominous bulk of a twenty millimeter auto sentry promising no mercy if they tried anything foolish.  
The ONI compound was a facility unto itself with its own barracks, landing pad, and armory surrounding  
a smooth, obsidian pyramid. Kemal steered them around the side of the main building and into a subterranean motor pool.

Hood was vetted once more by security and then led to a bank of elevators. He felt the familiar sensations of weight loss as the elevator descended into the ONI compound's sub-levels. Nothing inside the lift gave any indication of their progress, there were no controls or any indicator of what level they were on. Hood could only guess at how far underground they had gone, certainly less than a hundred meters which was positively shallow as ONI's subterranean lairs went.

There were no guards waiting for them as they exited into a short, warmly lit hallway. Hood suspected that none were needed. They were within ONI's inner sanctum now, no doubt a dedicated AI was observing both him and Captain Kemal closely, scrutinizing them and comparing their biometrics, body language, and voice patterns to the most extensive security archives in existence.

Captain Kemal led him to the end of the hall and gestured to an open door. The room beyond the  
threshold looked more like a high class executive boardroom than the heart of an ONI facility. A polished hardwood table dominated the center of the room fitted with workstations and chairs for a dozen occupants. The walls were fitted with floor to ceiling holographic arrays currently set to display a photorealistic view of the Highland Mountains complete with subdued audio. Hood grimaced at the opulence but suspected the men and women who normally used this room rarely saw the sun much less anything resembling nature.

A handful of early arrivals were already seated or standing around the room. Hood recognized a few faces. Two other Admirals and a marine officer he didn't recognize wearing the rank insignia of a brigadier general. He paused when he caught sight of a brunette woman furiously tapping away at a flex pad.

"Doctor Halsey." He greeted the woman politely.

The Doctor looked up from her terminal and gave Hood a deferential nod of the head. "Admiral Hood."  
They regarded each other silently for several long moments. "You mind telling me when you're going to stop depriving me of one of my best flag officers?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Halsey said. Nothing in her face betrayed any hint of emotion. It was typical of the Doctor. Strictly speaking she was just a civilian consultant but over the past few years she had been accumulating steadily more political power within ONI. Her influence now rivaled some Admirals albeit it could not be wielded so brazenly. But then, that suited a woman like Halsey just fine.

"Keyes. I know it's you that got him transferred and reassigned to Luna academy. Any reason why you think you can march in and squander one of my officers."  
Halsey shrugged. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Excuse me?"

"It doesn't matter how good a flag officer he is, he can only die once. Keyes shows potential, he's a lateral thinker, and he'll teach that to his students."

Hood's eyes narrowed. "How very thoughtful of you Doctor. I'll remember to ask your opinion about personnel assignments in the future."

"That would be a great help." Halsey said turning back to her flex pad. "I'm sick of calling in favors to get the right people in the right places."

Hood bit off a sharp retort as the door opened to admit a granite faced man in a navy uniform accompanied by a small entourage of intelligence personnel and staff officers. All of the room's military occupants came to stiff attention.

"Admiral Cole." Hood saluted sharply as the Hero of Harvest gestured for the room's occupants to stand at ease.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad ONI could make time in all of your busy schedules for this meeting." A few genuine murmurs of amusement suggested that the dry joke had been well received. Hood noted with some satisfaction the sour look that crossed Halsey's face. Cole gestured for the gathered men and women to be seated and took his own place at the head of the table.  
Cole took a seat and the terminal in front of him lit up automatically as it confirmed his identity and started streaming briefing files. A holographic projector came to life beside the admiral resolving into an  
AI avatar. A winged feminine figure composed of polygons.

"This is Joan, ONI intelligence section three. ONI has offered her services for the duration of this operations and I for one am glad to have her." Cole said.

The avatar gave a slight bow. "It is my pleasure to be of service."

"I have to apologize for the secrecy of this meeting and also the short notice. I assure you that there is a reason for both and that all will be explained shortly." Cole regarded the seated men and women seriously. "I have asked and received permission from high command to begin our first offensive against the Covenant."

There were murmurs from the gathered military personnel. It was Hood who broached the question.  
"An offensive? So we've found someplace to attack?"  
Cole tapped out a command on his terminal and the room dimmed. A holographic map of a planetary system appeared over the table. "I am referring to Lorelei, the 52nd human inhabited planet to experience Covenant encroachment. As I am sure you are all aware, high command wrote the system off one month ago when the Covenant began to entrench themselves and consolidate around the inhabitable planet. At this time all UNSC forces in system and planet side are assumed to have been wiped out."

Hood perked up at the mention of Lorelei.

"Admiral Cole, you said entrench, not regroup?" The question came from a waifish oriental woman, Admiral Saori Tanaka, commander of the 18th fleet, navy reserves.

Not that there were many reserves for her to command given the Covenant war. She had been relegated to driving marine detachments around the outer colonies on the opposite end of UNSC space from the invasion corridor where she was forced to make dew with decrepit navy cast offs and local customs patrol craft to prosecute the still ongoing war with the few remaining independents that hadn't gone defunct or settled their differences with greater pan humanity in their collective struggle against extermination.

"I didn't misspeak." Cole said. "The Covenant has begun to consolidate in the system." Another few commands brought up grainy images of covenant ships in orbit over the planet. Everything from whale nosed CCS class cruisers and scythe bowed carriers to oblong frigates and snub nosed corvettes were in attendance. But there was something more, amongst the more familiar warships were dozens of ungainly looking craft, bulbous forward hulls with almost vestigial drive sections. They looked to Hood like the Covenant version of a bulk transport.

"I don't recognize these ship types." Hood said.

"Nor do I." Admiral Cole said.

"We believe that they are fleet auxiliaries and engineering ships. They have been seen offloading large amounts of supplies on the planet and also linking their forward hulls together to form orbital structures. The drive section appears to be an independent craft which can then depart." Jone explained.

"The ONI prowlers Precipice and Jaguar were able to approach within half an AU of the planet at which point they release multiple stealth reconnaissance probes. Upon retrieval the satellites revealed extensive Covenant ground emplacements." The photos were transmitted to each terminal. "We believe this to be a ground side logistics base built to support their operations on the planet."

"Christ, it looks like they're building a goddamn city down there." The marine officer, his name tag identified him as brigadier General Sorel said.

"They would need a city for what they're doing." More photos. It took Hood a moment to appreciate what he was looking at. At first it appeared to be a metal disk dug up from underground. But then he realized that what he thought was dug up earth were really mountain ranges.

"Sir, this is the alien artifact discovered by ONI isn't it?"  
Admiral Cole nodded. "I'm sure you've all heard rumors. Even ONI can't hide something with this sort of exposure. We believe it to be the ruins of some precursor civilization to the current Covenant, if so, it may contain some form of religious importance to them. Also, given the fate of the UNSC Of Fire Forged, it may be a technological treasure trove for whoever may hold it. And it's value is also what makes Lorelei a golden opportunity."

"Up until this point we've had been entirely on the defensive. Every battle dictated on the Covenant's terms. They have decided where and when to strike and amassed their forces accordingly. Save for the rare occasion of the timely arrival of a UNSC task force this has inevitably led to routing of our forces and the destruction of our colonial holdings."

"At Harvest, owing to the limited point of contact, the Covenant chose to engage us head on. And though our losses were heavy, the Harvest campaign represented the highest casualty returns of any operation against the Covenant thus far. The battle for the planet may also have slowed the initial Covenant advance as their leadership decided whether the planet was of strategic importance."

"Then our objective will be to repeat our . . . success . . . at Harvest." Admiral Tanaka asked.

"After a fashion." Admiral Cole confirmed. "Lorelei is a golden opportunity. It is a target that the  
Covenant will not easily surrender which pins them in place and demands that they devote resources to its defense. By engaging the Covenant at Lorelei we gain the initiative and can dictate the terms of the battle. It will also allow us to gather valuable intelligence about the Covenant."

"If Lorelei really is a strategically important location, then the Covenant will devote reserves to its defense. The size the counter attack may give us an idea of their total force size or at least the sort of response they can muster in defense of one of their planets." Hood reasoned.

"Exactly." Cole said. "Furthermore the large concentration of Covenant technology in an already compromised star system offers an opportunity to conduct research that has been until this time curtailed due to the poor condition of retrieved samples and the need to sanitize covenant equipment."  
Another navy officer who Hood recognized as Rear Admiral Xao, snorted at the comment. "That supposes that we win."

Cole laced his fingers together. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have no choice but to win, any other  
outcome is to invite catastrophe."

"The Admiral has managed to convince the Security Council and ONI of the importance of this operation." Joan said. "High command has authorized deployment of the 5th and 6th fleets as well as elements of the 7th, 13th, and 15th fleets totaling in excess of five hundred warship and three hundred logistics and support ships."

Hood's brow rose at the numbers the AI tossed about. A force that size would rival the strength of the home fleet.

"That's all well and good." Xao said. "But from these reports, there are at least two hundred Covenant warships as Lorelei, and that doesn't count any defenses they may have constructed. You'll have to better than three to one losses if you want to have a fleet leftover to fend off a counter attack."

"I have been giving that a great deal of consideration." Cole said. "I admit the fleet numbers are rather  
smaller than I would like." Hood grimaced. This was small? Then what would Cole consider a large force? The man certainly couldn't be fault for thinking small. "Honestly it is likely for the best. A larger force would take more time to assemble and draw down from other operations. As is, we will already be drawing down heavily from the home guard fleet to rally the force on this time table."

"Is that why I was brought in?" Admiral Tanaka asked. "The 18th Fleet is most dependent on support from the home fleets. If the Innies realize a draw down is taking place they may take the opportunity to launch a new offensive. We've managed to keep the lid on the pot by weighing it down with marine units and army garrisons but we could be looking at another front if we're not careful."

"Bunch of idiots." Sorel spat. "We're getting murdered by aliens and they're still setting off IEDs in front of police stations and taking mining crews hostage in the belts."

"A consequence of ONI's propaganda campaign." Captain Kemal said gaining the attention of the gathered officers. Noticing that he was becoming the center of attention he elaborated. "The Innies dismiss reports of Covenant attacks as UEG propaganda by pointing out discrepancies in the official reports. The ONI's propaganda arm has made extensive use of social engineering and viral campaigns to mitigate these discrepancies in the eyes of the general public. The insurgents simply believe the reports are making the situation out to be more dyer than it really is to encourage the people to back the established government when it is, in fact, the other way around. Those insurgents groups in the path of the invasion have generally gone silent, they've witnessed firsthand the sort of war this is."

"Then drag those bastards out to the front line. They can see what kind of war we're fighting while I march them into the Covenant's guns." Sorel said.

"As emotionally satisfying as that might be." Admiral Tanaka said. "It is unlikely to happen any time soon. This is not a productive avenue of conversation. Like I was saying, force reallocations while we build up this strike force will give the surviving independents an opportunity to launch attacks. I'll be hard pressed to do anything about it."

"You shouldn't have to." Cole said. "ONI is pulling two Spartan teams from the field to run interference on the Innies. While this operation is ongoing they will also be shifting several of their attack prowlers to the region. Your reason for being here is two fold. First, you correctly assumed that arrangements will need to be made to deal with the Innies, that will be part of your task along with coordinating the logistics of this operation. More importantly, the 18th Fleet is the largest surviving institution with experience conducting contested planetary assaults. We're going to need your skill to get the troops ground side to dig the Covenant out from the around artifact."

Tanaka bowed her head. "I'm honored that you think so highly of my forces. We will offer whatever aid our misbegotten expertise can give."

"Admiral Xao, Admiral Hood." The two men stiffened. "You were selected for your complementary abilities. Hood, you will be responsible for combat arm organization. Xao, I want you to lend Admiral Tanaka your assistance with organizing our logistics for this operation. I want your whole staff reassigned to this." Both men nodded.

"General Sorel, I imagine you want some payback for Harvest."

"Damn straight." The marine General grunted. "Just put dirt beneath my feet and I'll get to burying  
those Covenant ground forces."

"That what I wanted to hear." Cole said. "You will also be coordinating with Admiral Tanaka, in this case for the ground operations. The 18th Fleet has the largest concentration of assault and landing ships, they'll be your ride down and offer support once you're planet side." Hood turned to a formerly silent army general. "General Bjorn, you'll take command of XXVIII Corp and offer heavy support for the marines."

"Sir, I'm honored." Bjorn said. "But surely Tanaka's assault ships could provide better fire support than my tanks and artillery."

"They can." Cole agreed. "But we want to minimize damage. Not just to the artifact, but also to the  
covenant facilities. The technology could be invaluable if we have a chance to examine it. I don't expect this fight to look pretty on the ground, but bombed out is a far cry from blown away. Besides, we don't know what sort of ground to orbit defenses the covenant may have and there's no guarantee we will be able to maintain orbital supremacy. Tanaka's assault ships may be forced to withdraw."

"If that's the way it is, then I accept it." The General glanced over to his marine counterpart. "It will be you and me Sorel, just like operation ARBALEST."  
Sorel chuckled, "Just try to be on time for once Eli."

"Captain Kemal will be our ONI Liaison and will coordinate ONI forward intelligence elements, infiltration forces, and reconnaissance assets in preparation for the assault." Kemal said nothing but gave a respectful nod.

"Finally, Doctor Halsey."

The Doctor laced her fingers together before her. "My research team will be ready to hit the ground as soon as the sight is secured. ONI has given us the services of several of their stealth prowlers to get us in and out."

Cole looked over the group of men and women he had gathered. "Good. Now that you all have an idea of your roles and our objective we will begin laying out our plan of attack.  
More files were forwarded to Hood's terminal and as he began to read Admiral Cole's preliminary plan his eyes widened. He could see why command was willing to bank on Cole to achieve victory even with a smaller force than requested. If it worked.

"This is insane." Xao muttered. "Coordinating a fleet like this is next to impossible."

"But not totally impossible." Tanaka said.

"The Covenant won't just let us bombard them like this." Xao countered.

"That's the beauty of it." Doctor Halsey said. Hood's blood ran cold when he looked at Halsey. There  
was a cold smile spread across her face. "Everything we know about the Covenant says they won't have a choice."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ship Master Sula Sumamee stepped out of his dropship and cocked his head as he sniffed the damp  
air. The smells of kicked up dust and the faint methane stench of a million Ungoy laborers filled his nostrils. In the distance the rim of the sacred artifact rose above the foothills to supplant the horizon as the edge of the world.

"Ship Master, I'm pleased that you could make it." Came the rasping voice of the Minister of Propriety.  
Sumamee turned and his mandibles folded into a smile at the arrival of his old friend. The Minister sat hunched atop his hovering throne smiling in that sincere fashion he had since first they met. The Minister was frailer than most of his kind, thin limbed with prematurely sagging skin. He had realized early in his life that he would never earn the privilege of breeding and instead had devoted himself to his faith. First as an acolyte, and now as a trusted agent of the Prophets.

"You are looking quite well Tovriss." Sumamee bowed his head.

The Minister laughed softly. "I'll have you now, lying to a minister is a heinous transgression, and calling  
one by name even more so, that's off with your head."

"That makes it one hundred and twelve deaths now." Sumamee said happily. "And one hundred and thirteen chances at life."

"You warriors and your philosophy." The Minister admonished. "Still, I am glad that you are here.  
You're presence as both a ally and a friend is appreciated." The two set off down the landing ramp and out into the camp. The base was of a standard layout with the landing pads centrally located and surrounded by soldier's barracks and the command center. A troop of Ungoy and Kigyar were marching up the ramp to a waiting dropship as Sumamee and the Minister departed.

"It is an impressive sight." Sumamee observed, gesturing to the horizon.

"Indeed. To find an Eye of the Gods is second only to the discovery of one of the Sacred Rings." The Minister said reverently. "If we are able to prove our worthiness and unlock its secrets it will be a powerful tool in achieving the Great Journey."

"Surely, the Gods would not make it so easy for us." Sumamee said. "The humans fought well to hold this place and even faced immolation at the hands of the Gods in an attempt to destroy the sacred Eye."

"I suspect that you are right." The Minister of Propriety said. "This is a challenge set before us to prove our worthiness. And that is why I am so glad to have you. It is said that the Eyes were built as transport devices, components of a larger network that the Forerunner's used to build their Empire and guard its borders in the time before they embarked upon the Great Journey and ascended to Godhood. If we can open this gateway, imagine where it will lead us!"

"I think I'll leave that to you." Sumamee chided. "I'll just worry about what's on the other side when we get there. If we get there. Surely the Huragok have been set to work by now." Of the Covenant races, only the Huragok, the servants of the Forerunner, were allowed to freely examine the technology of the revered race. There word was law on all technical knowledge deigned from examination of the ancient relics. Even respected Sangheili researchers struggled to gain the same level of authority as the lowliest Huragok in such matters.

"Of course." The Minister said. "Over twenty thousand have already been assigned to examining the workings of the Eye."

"Then it is surely in good hands." Sumamee said. "That leaves us to defend this place against any  
human counter offensive. Fortunately Fleet Master Masamee has things well in hand."

"And your own forces?" The minister asked. "Surely the title of Ship Master is not just for show."

"Of Course. I have been given command of a Strike Fleet detachment. Three fast attack ships of the  
latest model, each more than a match for a human heavy attack ship, a scourge for any human force  
that might threaten this place."

"This is splendid news!" The Minister of Propriety said, congratulating his old friend. "This is the first step to becoming a Fleet Master in your own right, is it not?" Sumamee gave a nod of ascent. "Then it is indeed fortunate that you are here. I shall speak with Fleet Master Masamee about have your forces stationed in low orbit."

"Tovriss. What is wrong?" Sumamee asked his old friend with concern.

"You know, that I do not have much time left, yes?" The Minister said.

"I try not to think about it, old friend, lest our time together spoil." Sumamee said.

The Minister's dry lips quirked slightly. "Be that as it may. My saving grace in the face of frailty has always been my faith. Though I may not live long enough to see the great journey I can see that it comes about, perhaps in your lifetime and in the lifetime of the children of my sister. This conviction has been proven to the prophets and they have rewarded me with this final task and the duty to consider sacrilege that it entails."

Sumamee tried to digest what his old friend was saying. "Tovriss, you have been made an inquisitor?"  
The Minister laughed and waved his hand. "It is not nearly so grandiose as that. You do recall the incident with the Prophet of Regret that transpired some time ago?"

Sumamee clicked his jaws thoughtfully. His family were merchants by inclination and so had as much reason to pay close attention to political goings on as anyone. Sumamee kept an ear to the political himself, though his interests leaned more to the High Council which emphasized military matters rather than the Heirarchs who set general policy. "I believe the Prophet of Regret was scolded for risking his personal safety."

"Indeed." The Minister of Propriety said. "In his quest to secure one of the sacred shield worlds, the Prophet of Regret took a small force and raided Forerunner sites on several human held worlds. While his actions did lead us to another sit of human blasphemy which was dully cleansed, in his hurry the Noble Prophet neglected to summon reinforcements. A human vessel gave chase to his forces and succeeded in destroying the shield installation from within. The Prophet only barely escaped with his life."

"Yes, I remember hearing of the destruction of the shield world." Sumamee said. "The destruction of such a reliquary is a great loss to us all."

"Indeed, I can only imagine how chastised the Noble Prophet must be, that in his haste his actions lead the humans to defile another sacred artifact. However, my new duties demand that I consider another possibility. The Noble Prophets of Truth and Mercy have requested that this new site be kept under close observation and that all progress be reported directly to them."

"That is to say." Sumamee finished, "That the Prophets do not trust the judgment of one of their own."

"Or, that they simply do not trust him at all."

Sumamee clicked his jaws in shock. "But . . . that cannot be. You are right, that is sacrilege." The stories of the shield world, a fleet of forerunner warships, each an artifact of the same caliber as the sacred dreadnaught at the heart of the Holy City itself. Wielded for the Covenant, they would have paved the way for the great journey. Wielded for just one, it could make even a Prophet first among equals.

"Perhaps I am mistaken. I must merely consider such things in order to safeguard our Covenant. But if there is some truth in it. Then, I may need the help of someone I know I can trust. Sula, you have been my sword in the past, I may need your services again in the near future."  
The Ship Master bowed his head. "Of course. Old friend." How could he refuse?

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

In the darkness he slumbered and to the darkness he woke. Mummified lips parted, sucking in breath. Eyelids opened revealing sunken eyes. Lights glimmered to life revealing his form. Desiccated limbs twitched feebly. Legs kicked helplessly. Slowly, a ribbon of metal descended from above, caressing the emaciated thing, encircling it, folding around it, protecting it.

Within his mind, madness settled into sanity, confusion in to understanding. Order rose from chaos. What had woken him? He reached outward through the artificial synapses and systems of his armor querying vast databases and the minds of his servants. His sanctum remained undisturbed. His servants new nothing of the transgression that had woken, no, it came from something much much older. Far back. From the old times.

One of the gates had been opened. How very interesting. And its location, even more telling. As if to mock him. So close to her garden world and the favored pets of her and her protégées. His armored hands balled into fists powerful enough to crush steel and shatter stone. He had thought he had dealt adequately with their transgressions but it seemed he was mistaken. No matter.

He reached out through the systems his will poring into combat chassis, navigation computers, weapon system. And then he froze, paralyzed. He was no longer within the network, no longer within his armor. He was on that blasted hill, and she was there. That golden eyed woman, starring at him. Beautiful eyes gazing out of a face that she had willfully disfigured. Mocking her heritage, mocking him! Her lips were pressed tightly together, head bowed forward somehow looking down on him, pitying him.  
Memory slowly returned and he understood and he raged against her futilely. The not real memory of a woman, her shadow that turned his sanctum into his prison, his power into his shackles. And after a time the rage cooled to smoldering hate. He reached out by a different path. Subtly, methodically, reaching down into the minds of his servants. That ones that mistook him for god. It seemed his tools had been busy. Good, wonderful, he had use of them now.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Marine Technical Manual-

UNSC M808B Scorpion Expeditionary Tank

As the independents movements scattered throughout UEG governed space gained momentum, Marine reaction units required an armored fighting vehicle capable of engaging improvised technicals and locally manufactured AFVs as well as neutralizing resistance strong points in urban environments.  
In 2519 the UNSC put forward a contract for an air transportable tanks capable of being transported using the reinforced sky winch of a modified DC-77 Pelican Dropship. The tank was to mass no more than forty five tons and emphasize crew protection, battlefield awareness, and infantry support.  
In 2520 the Reach based Bredar Arsenal, a subsidiary of General Atomics Land Systems, in conjunction with the widely renowned Kenbishi Research University on Amaterasu, put forward a design for an advanced all terrain assault gun carriage making use of Kenbishi's fully articulated hybrid suspension and vehicle control system. The resulting platform was capable maneuvering over a variety of rough terrain and even crawling over heavier rubble.

The M808B is operated by a two man crew, a driver and a gunner/commander who is in control of the vehicles weapons. An advanced communications and fire control system assists the gunner in target identification and command of the vehicle.

The vehicle's main armament is a 105mm eletro thermal accelerator cannon designed and built by Bredar Arsenal. The cannon is mounted in a remote turret and fed by an autoloader with eight rounds of ready to fire ammunition and up two thirty two additional rounds housed in a blow out box on the back of the turret. The loader is capable of ammunition selection and both loading and removal of munitions from the firing breach. A .50 caliber coaxial gun is mounted and aligned with the main cannon to provide infantry suppression capabilities. Hard points for additional remote weapon systems are located on the glacis and top of the turret providing mounting points for light machine guns and automatic grenade launchers which may be managed by either the commander or driver or operated in automatic sentry mode as part of the tanks FUWS Field Urban Warfare Suite.

The crew compartment is separated into two independent fully sealed crew spaces arranged like the seats of an attack VTOL. Although the Scorpions armor has been criticized for being relatively light, the crew compartments have been heavily armored and extensively reinforced to improve crew survival odds. The crew space is fully environmentally sealed and NBC rated.

The M808B relies on a number of active and passive defenses to protect itself and its crew. A hull wide suite of sensors provides the crew a full 360 degree panoramic view of the surroundings in visual spectrum, infrared, and enhanced imaging modes. Data from this sensor suite is forwarded to the FUWS tactical computer for fast image processing and command of the close in defense systems. In an attempt to improve the Scorpion's protection against covenant plasma weaponry, scorpion tanks have been equipped with ablative ceramic armor blocks, reactive armor charges, and superconductive  
mesh linings to spread the energy of plasma impacts.

Additionally, some variants have been modified with super rapid deployment chaff dispensers capable of releasing an aerosol cloud of powdered metal into the path of an incoming plasma bolt, the resulting explosion as the bolt contact the aerosol cloud disrupts the plasma discharge and dissipates the blast across the glacis. Unfortunately, the consequences to any dismounted infantry in the vicinity are severe, thus limiting it to use on spearhead units in massed armor thrusts. Bredar Arsenal engineers are currently prototyping an advance active countermeasure system to defend against plasma weapons by using a directed electro thermal charge to intercept the incoming plasma bolt but the system is still some time from deployment.t here...


End file.
